Broken path escapes in windows

[whaaaley]

Describe the bug
Here's some example output navigating to my wsl nixos.

{
  `path`: `\\\\wsl.localhost\
ixos\\home\
ixos\\projects\	rpg`
}

Removing escapes from the path in the json causes issues:

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Access a directory starting with n or t

Expected behavior
Go to path, no escaping breaking the path

Logs
n/a

Additional context
More escapes do nothing I was doing it wrong, that does fix it, but the visual bug remains

Edit: It's kinda fixed kinda not. The write sends stuff of into the ether but it thinks it's correct.

[adithyakpb]

don't know if i am doing this right, but not able to add a directory path containing spaces. Logs show the following error.

is there any workaround? i did try escape sequences, single nested quotes, forward slashes.

On a single glance going through the code, the argument handling from the JSON is rudimentary. JSON does not allow single backslashes.

Let me know if I am wrong anywhere or if there is a better way to do this.

[michaelfromyeg]

@whaaaley what was the final config file you ended up with? Hitting similar path issues when trying to run an MCP server on Windows and have it access files under WSL.

[whaaaley]

@michaelfromyeg I just cloned my project into another distro with a different pathname that didn't conflict. It seemed safer that way.

[michaelfromyeg]

@whaaaley thanks for the reply! In case other people come along, I actually have this working with "\" escapes:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "filesystem": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
                "\\\\wsl.localhost\\Ubuntu\\home\\mdema\\code\\michaeldemar.co",
                "\\\\wsl.localhost\\Ubuntu\\home\\mdema\\code\\michaeldemar.co-v5"
            ]
        }
    }
}

I have the MCP server running on Windows (since I don't think Claude can connect to an MCP server running with my Ubuntu instance) and this can read the files on WSL.

Maybe fixed?

[michaelfromyeg]

Claude renders '\n' as a new line, e.g., it's trying to read the Next.js config

[ppsplus-bradh]

don't know if i am doing this right, but not able to add a directory path containing spaces. Logs show the following error.

is there any workaround? i did try escape sequences, single nested quotes, forward slashes.

On a single glance going through the code, the argument handling from the JSON is rudimentary. JSON does not allow single backslashes.

Let me know if I am wrong anywhere or if there is a better way to do this.

You're getting the same error I am. This seems less to do with the directory you gave it access to and more with something in the script that it is getting hung up on. Searching the Program Files directory for something and puking on the space. Did you get past it?

[olaservo]

Closing this one out. The two things reported here are both on the client side rather than in this server:

• The \n / \t rendering in the tool-call display is Claude Desktop showing the JSON-escaped argument, not the server misreading it. The server receives the decoded string.
• Backslashes in claude_desktop_config.json have to be doubled because the file is JSON. \\\\wsl.localhost\\nixos\\home\\... is the correct spelling, as the thread worked out.

The server side of Windows path handling has changed a lot since this was filed (path-utils.ts handles UNC and \\wsl.localhost prefixes). If you hit a case on the current version where a correctly escaped path is rejected or resolves to the wrong place, please open a new issue with the config and the error text.