Issues opening Sentinel-2 data sets in ENVI 5.3/5.3.1

Sentinel-2 data support was added to ENVI 5.3 and expanded with ENVI 5.3.1 (SP1).  However, when opening some Sentinel-2 data sets using ENVI, you may encounter different error messages depending on the distributor of the data and how the data are stored.

Long paths

With the initial release of Sentinel-2 data from the ESA/SciHub, it was discovered that the very long file names of the data sets can cause some issues on Windows platforms, particularly if the data are stored deep into the directory structure, which makes the path to the actual data granules extremely long.  For example, a full Sentinel-2 data set can contain many granules of jp2 data.  The un-archived file may have a name such as:

S2A_OPER_PRD_MSIL1C_PDMC_20160125T111126_R053_V20160122T144141_20160122T144141.SAFE

where the actual data files (.jp2) are stored underneath this directory (under GRANULE) and opened using an .XML file that references the various granules within the directory. If this file is stored deep into a directory, the length of the path to the files will exceed the limit that Windows will allow (260 characters).  You may encounter the following error:

"File does not appear to be a valid JPEG2000 file".

If you encounter this issue, move the file to a shorter directory path or to the root directory (C: on Windows).

Missing granules in USGS distributed Sentinel-2 data sets

Sentinel-2 data distributed through SciHub typically contain the full data set with all granules.  The USGS distributes this same data but only for a subset or a a single granule of data.  So they take the full data set (which are upwards of 7 GB) and separate the granules into different files which makes them much smaller to download (<1 GB).  However, the .XML file that is distributed with the USGS data sets is the original XML that references all the original granules.  When you open these data sets in ENVI, you may encounter the same error as before:

"File does not appear to be a valid JPEG2000 file".

but also an object reference error due to the missing data sets:

<OBJREF  (<NullObject>)>

If you encounter this error with Sentinel-2 data sets distributed from the USGS, please contact Harris Geospatial Technical Support to obtain a hotfix for ENVI 5.3.1.

Missing data from SciHub distributed Sentinel-2 data sets

This issue can occur with Sentinel-2 data sets that cross more than one UTM Zone.  The data set can be opened using the .XML without error but it appears that some granules are missing or misplaced in the display.

If you encounter this error with Sentinel-2 data sets distributed from SciHub, please contact Harris Geospatial Technical Support to obtain a hotfix for ENVI 5.3.1.