Symptoms

When processing a document using ABBYY FineReader Server Open API, the import fails with the "Unable to access the directory <path>. Please make sure that the directory exists and that you have sufficient permissions to access it. For instructions on setting up access permissions required by the ABBYY FineReader Server Open API, please refer to the documentation." error message. 

Cause

Usually, the following error appears when the user account under which the ABBYY FineReader Server 14 Application Pool is launched doesn't have sufficient read/write permissions to the following folders

Resolution

1. We recommend granting all permissions to the user that runs the Application pool as well as to the user that runs Server Manager and Processing Station Windows services.
   Please refer to the following article that contains instructions on how to change the user or grant  access: https://help.abbyy.com/en-us/finereaderserver/14/api_help/openapi_permissions/
   Additionally, in case you have granted Read&Write permissions for the user that runs Application Pool and FRS Services, but still get an error, we recommend adding Full control for Everyone (For directories mentioned above)
   
   
2. In case all permissions are correctly set but you still face the issues even with Full control for Everyone  navigate to C:\Program Files\ABBYY FineReader Server 14.0\FineReaderServerWS\Web.config and change the following line from:

    <directFileAccess enabled="false" />

   to

   <directFileAccess enabled="true" />

   Please note that enabling this option may introduce a security vulnerability
   unless proper access control is used for the application pool identity account.

   This option is disabled by default.
   (So we strongly recommend performing the first step (granting all permissions to the folder/user) before changing the directFileAccess value to "true")