System.IO.Exception error: "The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open."

Question

I received a very weird IOException when writing to an XML file:

System.IO.IOException: The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open.     at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)    at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)    at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)    at System.Xml.XmlTextWriter..ctor(String filename, Encoding encoding)    at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Save(String filename) 

The error happened when I called XmlDocument's Save(string) function.

Any ideas on what happened?

Answer 1

Looks like another process had the file open using the file mapping (shared memory) APIs.

The find function in Process Explorer should be able to tell you.