Getting "java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException" when trying to write to a folder

Not the answer for this question

I got this exception when trying to delete a folder where i deleted the file inside.

Example:

createFolder("folder");  
createFile("folder/file");  
deleteFile("folder/file");  
deleteFolder("folder"); // error here

While deleteFile("folder/file"); returned that it was deleted, the folder will only be considered empty after the program restart.

On some operating systems it may not be possible to remove a file when it is open and in use by this Java virtual machine or other programs.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/nio/file/Files.html#delete-java.nio.file.Path-

Explanation from dhke

I was getting the same error when trying to copy a file. Closing a channel associated with the target file solved the problem.

Path destFile = Paths.get("dest file");
SeekableByteChannel destFileChannel = Files.newByteChannel(destFile);
//...
destFileChannel.close();  //removing this will throw java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException:
Files.copy(Paths.get("source file"), destFile);

Getting java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException when trying to write to a folder

Unobviously, Comodo antivirus has an "Auto-Containment" setting that can cause this exact error as well. (e.g. the user can write to a location, but the java.exe and javaw.exe processes cannot).

In this edge-case scenario, adding an exception for the process and/or folder should help.

Temporarily disabling the antivirus feature will help understand if Comodo AV is the culprit.

I post this not because I use or prefer Comodo, but because it's a tremendously unobvious symptom to an otherwise functioning Java application and can cost many hours of troubleshooting file permissions that are sane and correct, but being blocked by a 3rd-party application.

Ok it turns out I was doing something stupid. I hadn't appended the new file name to the path.

I had

rootDirectory = "C:\\safesite_documents"

but it should have been

rootDirectory = "C:\\safesite_documents\\newFile.jpg" 

Sorry it was a stupid mistake as always.