Cannot open local file - Chrome: Not allowed to load local resource

Question

Test browser: Version of Chrome: 52.0.2743.116

It is a simple javascript that is to open an image file from local like \'C:\\002.jpg\'

function run(         


        

Answer 1

Chrome specifically blocks local file access this way for security reasons.

Here's a workaround to enable the flag in Chrome (and open your system up to vulnerabilities):

c:\Program Files (x86)\google\chrome\Application\chrome.exe --allow-file-access-from-files

Answer 2

This issue come when I am using PHP as server side language and the work around was to generate base64 enconding of my image before sending the result to client

$path = 'E:/pat/rwanda.png';
$type = pathinfo($path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$data = file_get_contents($path);
$base64 = 'data:image/' . $type . ';base64,' . base64_encode($data);

I think may give someone idea to create his own work around

Thanks

Answer 3

Okay folks, I completely understand the security reasons behind this error message, but sometimes, we do need a workaround... and here's mine. It uses ASP.Net (rather than JavaScript, which this question was based on) but it'll hopefully be useful to someone.

Our in-house app has a webpage where users can create a list of shortcuts to useful files spread throughout our network. When they click on one of these shortcuts, we want to open these files... but of course, Chrome's error prevents this.

This webpage uses AngularJS 1.x to list the various shortcuts.

Originally, my webpage was attempting to directly create an <a href..> element pointing at the files, but this produced the "Not allowed to load local resource" error when a user clicked on one of these links.

<div ng-repeat='sc in listOfShortcuts' id="{{sc.ShtCut_ID}}" class="cssOneShortcutRecord" >
    <div class="cssShortcutIcon">
        <img ng-src="{{ GetIconName(sc.ShtCut_PathFilename); }}">
    </div>
    <div class="cssShortcutName">
        <a ng-href="{{ sc.ShtCut_PathFilename }}" ng-attr-title="{{sc.ShtCut_Tooltip}}" target="_blank" >{{ sc.ShtCut_Name }}</a>
    </div>
</div>

The solution was to replace those <a href..> elements with this code, to call a function in my Angular controller...

<div ng-click="OpenAnExternalFile(sc.ShtCut_PathFilename);" >
    {{ sc.ShtCut_Name }}
</div>

The function itself is very simple...

$scope.OpenAnExternalFile = function (filename) {
    //
    //  Open an external file (i.e. a file which ISN'T in our IIS folder)
    //  To do this, we get an ASP.Net Handler to manually load the file, 
    //  then return it's contents in a Response.
    //
    var URL = '/Handlers/DownloadExternalFile.ashx?filename=' + encodeURIComponent(filename);
    window.open(URL);
}

And in my ASP.Net project, I added a Handler file called DownloadExternalFile.aspx which contained this code:

namespace MikesProject.Handlers
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for DownloadExternalFile
    /// </summary>
    public class DownloadExternalFile : IHttpHandler
    {
        //  We can't directly open a network file using Javascript, eg
        //      window.open("\\SomeNetworkPath\ExcelFile\MikesExcelFile.xls");
        //
        //  Instead, we need to get Javascript to call this groovy helper class which loads such a file, then sends it to the stream.  
        //      window.open("/Handlers/DownloadExternalFile.ashx?filename=//SomeNetworkPath/ExcelFile/MikesExcelFile.xls");
        //
        public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
        {
            string pathAndFilename = context.Request["filename"];               //  eg  "\\SomeNetworkPath\ExcelFile\MikesExcelFile.xls"
            string filename = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(pathAndFilename);      //  eg  "MikesExcelFile.xls"

            context.Response.ClearContent();

            WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
            using (Stream stream = webClient.OpenRead(pathAndFilename))
            {
                // Process image...
                byte[] data1 = new byte[stream.Length];
                stream.Read(data1, 0, data1.Length);

                context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", string.Format("attachment; filename={0}", filename));
                context.Response.BinaryWrite(data1);

                context.Response.Flush();
                context.Response.SuppressContent = true;
                context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest();
            }
        }

        public bool IsReusable
        {
            get
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }

And that's it.

Now, when a user clicks on one of my Shortcut links, it calls the OpenAnExternalFile function, which opens this .ashx file, passing it the path+filename of the file we want to open.

This Handler code loads the file, then passes it's contents back in the HTTP response.

And, job done, the webpage opens the external file.

Phew ! Again - there is a reason why Chrome throws this "Not allowed to load local resources" exception, so tread carefully with this... but I'm posting this code just to demonstrate that this is a fairly simple way around this limitation.

Just one last comment: the original question wanted to open the file "C:\002.jpg". You can't do this. Your website will sit on one server (with it's own C: drive) and has no direct access to your user's own C: drive. So the best you can do is use code like mine to access files somewhere on a network drive.

Answer 4

This solution worked for me in PHP. It opens the PDF in the browser.

// $path is the path to the pdf file
public function showPDF($path) {
    if($path) {
        header("Content-type: application/pdf");
        header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=filename.pdf");
        @readfile($path);
    }
}

Answer 5

Google Chrome does not allow to load local resources because of the security. Chrome need http url. Internet Explorer and Edge allows to load local resources, but Safari, Chrome, and Firefox doesn't allows to load local resources.

Go to file location and start the Python Server from there.

python -m SimpleHttpServer

then put that url into function:

function run(){
var URL = "http://172.271.1.20:8000/" /* http://0.0.0.0:8000/ or http://127.0.0.1:8000/; */
window.open(URL, null);
}

Answer 6

1) Open your terminal and type

npm install -g http-server

2) Go to the root folder that you want to serve you files and type:

http-server ./

3) Read the output of the terminal, something kinda http://localhost:8080 will appear.

Everything on there will be allowed to be got. Example:

background: url('http://localhost:8080/waw.png');