ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED: Access is denied. [DirReaderPlus]

[narendra]

FreeFileSync ver 13.8
Windows 11 Home

I have a smaller SSD Drive (C:) and a bigger HDD (D:). Hence, I have moved some of my folders (Downloads, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos) to the D: Drive [D:\Data\<username>\Downloads; ...\Pictures; ...\Music; ...\Videos]. Although I have correctly specified the folder paths for synchronization (and several FFS versions before 13.8 worked fine), FFS ver 13.8 gives the following errors for three folders: My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos.

Cannot open directory "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Music". ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED: Access is denied. [DirReaderPlus]

I ignore the three errors and move ahead. Surprisingly, all the folders get synchronized, even after throwing the error.

Moreover, the error doesn't come for the Downloads folder, which is also similarly mapped, and this folder also gets synchronized.

It's probably a bug with FFS ver. 13.8 and several versions prior to this have worked just fine.

[xCSxXenon]

You say you changed the paths in FFS accordingly, but the error says otherwise:
"C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Music"
Unless your Documents weren't moved over. In that case, the "My Music" shortcut in Documents is a symbolic link. Documents contains "My Music", "My Pictures", and "My Videos" links. They should be excluded from your sync in my opinion. These are hidden files and trying to access them manually via File Explorer also throws an access error. FFS shouldn't even be seeing those though. I just ran a test and FFS doesn't even see them when I run a comparison.

EDIT: They are 'junctions'
I am not 100% sure what they are for or what they do, but I will keep looking around since this is the first time I cared enough to do so lol

[xCSxXenon]

These junctions are there for legacy support. Back in the day, Windows stored My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos inside the Documents folder. When Microsoft transitioned to storing those folders as subdirectories of the user's folder as we do now, they added these junction points. These allowed you to migrate a user's data from the old layout directly into the new format without manually moving the data around.
That solves one mystery: What are these junctions doing there?
It does not solve why FFS is seeing them in your setup.

How did you move these folders? The proper way is to go into the folder's properties, switch to the 'Location' tab, then move it from there. If you did it a different way, this could be a source for the errors.

[narendra]

You say you changed the paths in FFS accordingly, but the error says otherwise:
"C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Music"

True. That's why I was puzzled.

Unless your Documents weren't moved over. In that case, the "My Music" shortcut in Documents is a symbolic link. Documents contains "My Music", "My Pictures", and "My Videos" links. They should be excluded from your sync in my opinion. These are hidden files and trying to access them manually via File Explorer also throws an access error. FFS shouldn't even be seeing those though. I just ran a test and FFS doesn't even see them when I run a comparison.

My Documents folder is on the C: Drive, while the [My] Pictures, Music, Videos, and Downloads folders are on the D: Drive.

I had made this change about 3 yrs back (when I got this [new] laptop, and I have been using FFS at least for the past two years, with the folders mapped properly. I had no issues till version 13.8.

Anyway, as per your suggestion, I went to Folder Options, clicked "Show hidden files ...", and unticked "Hide protected OS files". I could now see "My Music", "My Pictures", and "My Videos" [links] within my Documents Folder on C: Drive. However, they were inaccessible (through Explorer). I changed their properties to make them accessible to Everyone. Ran FFS again and the error was gone! In fact, FFS didn't even show them [the listing was empty] when I ran "Compare" (while they were visible in Explorer). So, I wonder why FFS was complaining when these folders were inaccessible before!

EDIT: They are 'junctions'
I am not 100% sure what they are for or what they do, but I will keep looking around since this is the first time I cared enough to do so lol

I realized this too. After allowing access to Everyone to these folders, I browsed to C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Music / Pictures / Videos folders using Explorer, and all these folders were empty! However, accessing them through Libraries (Libraries\Music, etc.) was successful and showed the contents of the respective folders on the D: Drive, confirming that the folders were correctly mapped.

So, as these folders inside the Documents folders were (probably) just placeholders or 'junctions', I deleted them to avoid confusion. Checked FFS again, and FFS again didn't even show them as deleted [listing was empty]! So, the problem is now solved.

In summary, the My Music / Pictures / Videos placeholders / shortcuts / junctions were inside the Documents folder. They were designated as "Protected OS files" and, thus, were neither visible nor accessible. However, FFS 13.8 tried to access them and failed, throwing an error. Deleting them solved the issue.

Thank you.

[narendra]

That solves one mystery: What are these junctions doing there?
It does not solve why FFS is seeing them in your setup.

True. But FFS versions before 13.8 didn't see them, so I never noticed. I had the issue only with 13.8.

How did you move these folders? The proper way is to go into the folder's properties, switch to the 'Location' tab, then move it from there. If you did it a different way, this could be a source for the errors.

I had moved these folders properly, just as you wrote, about 3 yrs before.
In FFS, I have mapped the folders C:\Users\<username>\Documents, D:\Data\Pictures, D:\Data\Music, and D:\Data\Videos to their respective locations on my removable HDD. The setting had worked fine till FFS 13.8.

[Zenju]

Most likely you've (accidentally?) changed the symbolic link handling, see the comparison config page:
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=comparison-settings

"ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED" is the default response when symlink handling is set to "follow" for these folders as you saw in Explorer.

By default FFS does not "include symbolic links", so the error is avoided.

[xCSxXenon]

Most likely you've (accidentally?) changed the symbolic link handling, see the comparison config page:
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=comparison-settings

"ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED" is the default response when symlink handling is set to "follow" for these folders as you saw in Explorer.

By default FFS does not "include symbolic links", so the error is avoided.

This was going to be my next question; whether or not the OP had configured symlinks at all. Weird that it worked until a version update, related or not