I think that if you search the forums that you will find other users who have (and are) struggling with similar issues.
Just brainstorming:
Perhaps it is related to inability of ArcGIS Server to find your server. There have been many posts about server having issues with machine names which contain certain characters. Suggest that you use very simple names. Also, you might try using a fully qualified domain name. There have been various issues related to the resolution of machine names.
You might try running the SysInternals Process Monitor utility in order to ascertain what the underlying failure is, i.e. what is ArcGIS Server trying to do that is failing. That might give you the insight that you need to be able to understand the problem.
When I have problems like this what I try to do is to simplify as much as possible. I might start with a non-domain account and see if that works. Another thing to try is to just use local storage, i.e. not UNC. I understand that these configurations are not what you want to deploy but the goal here is to figure out why it is failing.
If you resolve this then please post the resolution. I am hoping that 10.2 has better error messages in these situations.
Does the ArcGIS Server account have the rights needed to log on the machine which is hosting the UNC share?
I agree that this should not be needed but perhaps you could add it to see if that is the problem. If you don't control that server then can you do all of this on a test server which you can control?
See if there are any NT event log entries on the machine hosting the UNC share.
You could try \\IP address\share\folder.
Anything in the NT event log on the server hosting the share?
<Item> <Path>/fileShares/\\host\sharedfolder</Path> <Type>folder</Type> <Info>{"dataStoreConnectionType":"shared","path":"\\\\host\\sharedfolder"}</Info> </Item>
I have ArcGIS Server 10.1 SP1 running on Windows Server 2008. I am trying to register a shared folder using the UNC path as a data store. I've tried this in ArcCatalog 10.1 sp1 and through the web manager interface, and it fails with:
Invalid folder location. Unable to access this location.
The ArcGIS Server service account is a domain account with full permissions to the share and full NTFS permissions. I've verified this by logging into the ArcGIS server as the service account, opening the UNC path in question, and reading/writing files.
The path I'm trying to register is of the form \\server\share\folder. I've also tried just \\server\share, makes no difference.
I have an open ticket with ESRI on this, but the tech I'm working with seems to think I haven't applied permissions or I'm mistyping the path. As I stated earlier, I've verified I have the permissions correct and I'm using the correct path. It opens with no problem and that service account has full permissions. I think this may be an issue with ArcGIS Server.
Any assistance is appreciated.