FileSystemWatcher�Why Does It Stop Working?

An application I was working on that used the FileSystemWatcher class and was intended to run 24/7 would periodically stop working. After a little searching, I managed to narrow it down to network outages. You see, the watcher was looking at a network drive, and intermittently (as networks will) it was dropping out and then coming back again. I soon learnt that, when this happens, the FileSystemWatcher loses track of what it was supposed to do.

Easy to fix? Well, it's not too hard. Check out the example below. You can even test this on your local machine by simply removing the directory that is being searched:

using System;
using System.IO;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
   class Class1
   {
      private static FileSystemWatcher watcher =
         new FileSystemWatcher();

      [STAThread]
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         WatchFile();
         Console.ReadLine();
      }

      // set up the FileSystemWatcher object
      private static void WatchFile()
      {
         // ***** Change this as required
         watcher.Path = @"\\myServer\c$\test\";

         // For this example, I only care about when new files are
         // created
         watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite;
         watcher.Filter = "*.txt";

         // Add event handlers: 1 for the event raised when a file
         // is created, and 1 for when it detects an error.
         watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(NewFile);
         watcher.Error += new ErrorEventHandler(WatcherError);

         // Begin watching.
         watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
      }

      // Define the found event handler.
      private static void NewFile(object source, FileSystemEventArgs e)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("A file has been found!");
         File.Delete(e.FullPath);
      }

      // The error event handler
      private static void WatcherError(object source, ErrorEventArgs e)
      {
         Exception watchException = e.GetException();
         MessageBox.Show("A FileSystemWatcher error has occurred: "
                         + watchException.Message);
         // We need to create new version of the object because the
         // old one is now corrupted
         watcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
         while (!watcher.EnableRaisingEvents)
         {
            try
            {
               // This will throw an error at the
               // watcher.NotifyFilter line if it can't get the path.
               WatchFile();
               Console.WriteLine("I'm Back!!");
            }
            catch
            {
               // Sleep for a bit; otherwise, it takes a bit of
               // processor time
               System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);
            }
         }
      }
   }
}