FileInputStream(file) returning ENOENT (No such file or directory) android

Question

I'm trying to retrieve a file (any type) from file manager and encode this file in a Base64 String. I've found a lot of answers involving IMAGES, but I need any type of file. He's what I'm doing.

I'm retrieving a file(any type) from gallery like this

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setType("*/*");
intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Choose file"), GALLERY_REQUEST_CODE);

And in my result

Uri returnUri = intent.getData();

What gives me 'content://com.android.providers.downloads.documents/document/1646'

Then I try

File file = new File( returnUri.getPath() );

So far so good, but then I try to encode the file into a Base64 string:

    String str = null;
    try {
        str = convertFile(file);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

And the convertFile method

public String convertFile(File file)
        throws IOException {
    byte[] bytes = loadFile(file);
    byte[] encoded = Base64.encode(bytes, Base64.DEFAULT);
    String encodedString = new String(encoded);

    return encodedString;

}

And the loadFile method

private static byte[] loadFile(File file) throws IOException {
    InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);

    long length = file.length();
    if (length > Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
        Log.i("MobileReport","Anexo -> loadfile(): File is too big!");
        // File is too large
    }
    byte[] bytes = new byte[(int)length];

    int offset = 0;
    int numRead = 0;
    while (offset < bytes.length
           && (numRead=is.read(bytes, offset, bytes.length-offset)) >= 0) {
        offset += numRead;
    }

    if (offset < bytes.length) {
        throw new IOException("It was not possible to read the entire file "+file.getName());
    }

    is.close();
    return bytes;
}

The error is in the first line of 'loadFile' method

InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);

The app crashes and in the log I got:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /document/1646: open failed: ENOENT (No such file or directory)

I've declared the READ and WRITE permissions. Could anyone help me with that error? Thank you!

Answer 1

returnUri is a Uri. It is not a filesystem path.

In particular, if you examine it, you will find that it is a content:// Uri. To get an InputStream for that content, use openInputStream() on a ContentResolver.