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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-16T03:06:26+00:00

I am able to run the xp_fileexists command successfully on the local drives of

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I am able to run the xp_fileexists command successfully on the local drives of my SQL Server instance. If a file exists, I get an output of 1. If a file does not exists, the output is 0. When I run the same command on a network drive that is mapped on the SQL Server machine, the output is always 0.

For example, if I have a file with a URL of ‘\\10.188.20.5\myfolder\myfile.txt’. I would run 

SET @MYFILE = '\\10.188.20.5\myfolder\myfile.txt'
EXEC MASTER.DBO.XP_FILEEXIST @MYFILE, @MYOUTPUT OUT
PRINT @MYOUTPUT

The result would return 0.

If I run a bulk insert command on the same URL, the file would be successfully imported

BULK INSERT #mytable
FROM '\\10.188.20.5\myfolder\myfile.txt'

What is causing xp_fileexists to malfunction on network drives?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The problem turned out to be with the Admin account password used to run SQL Server. The password was changed, but SQL Server continued to run. It just happened ‘MASTER.DBO.XP_FILEEXIST’ didn’t work because of the password conflict, but other SQL Server functions did. Once I changed the password associated with the Admin account used to run SQL Server, the function worked as expected.

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