Hello I think the problem in your case is that the default filesystem manager does not know about the ftp: scheme. The error message is a bit missleading (since a fix done, probably we should file a bug for this).
The default manager does try to load the FtpProvider and tries to register it with ftp: so I assume loading of the provider failed. Maybe you are missing dependencies like commons-net (see the website for the dependencies per provider). For debugging you can print manager.getSchemes() to see the available schemes (providers). Gruss Bernd -- http://bernd.eckenfels.net ________________________________ Von: Erwin Hogeweg <erwin.hoge...@me.com.invalid> Gesendet: Mittwoch, Oktober 30, 2019 3:29 AM An: Commons Users List Betreff: commons-vfs-2.4.1 - Question re. usage of VFS.getManager() All - I am trying to set up a VFS but I struggled a while to get past a FileSystemException. After looking at the VFS source code I understood what was going on, and I was able to create a work-around. However, I am not sure that what I hacked together is the right approach so I am looking for some guidance from the experts here… This is what I was trying to do: FileObject path = VFS.getManager().resolveFile("ftp://ftp.gnu.org/README", new FileSystemOptions()); The issue is, or at least appears to be, that the FileSystemManager doesn’t have a baseFile so the resolveFile blows up with this exception: org.apache.commons.vfs2.FileSystemException: Could not find file with URI "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/README" because it is a relative path, and no base URI was provided. at org.apache.commons.vfs2.FileSystemException.requireNonNull(FileSystemException.java:87) I could not find how/where to define that baseFile so I eventually settled on this work-around: StandardFileSystemManager fsManager = (StandardFileSystemManager) VFS.getManager(); // YUCK! fsManager.setBaseFile(new File("")); // Another YUCK. FileObject path = fsManager.resolveFile("ftp://ftp.gnu.org/README", opts); That works, and now I end up with the correct (expected) path. It doesn’t feel right though so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Erwin