Why "The system cannot find the batch label specified" is thrown even if label exists?

While running a batch file in Windows XP I have found randomly occurring error message:

The system cannot find the batch label specified name_of_label

Of course label existed. What causes this error?

Actually, you need 2 conditions for this to happen:

• the batch file must not use CRLF line endings
• the label you jump to must span a block boundary (as opposed to and :end label wich is just a shortcut to the end of your script)

See. The system cannot find the batch label specified (by and Batch-as-batch-can!

David A. Gray mentions in the comments seeing (on Windows 10) what Marshal's answer showed in 2014 (presumably on Windows 7 or 8): a script/batch program (.bat or .cmd) executed without CALL would trigger an eol conversion.

I've written hundreds of batch scripts over the last 35 years, and the only time I've ever had an issue with labels not being found was when the file's line breaks got converted from Windows (CR/LF), which works, to Unix (LF), which doesn't.

Feb. 2020, kinar adds in the comments:

Just encountered this issue on a Win7 machine.
Turns out this error can also be generated when trying to CALL another .bat file if that file doesn't exist on the system.
In my case, I was trying to call the Visual Studio vcvarsall.bat file on a system without VS installed.

See jeb's answer for more: it was a case of an undefined label.

Note: in a Git repository, I would recommend a .gitattributes file with the directive:

*.bat   text eol=crlf

I have got the same issue before. However, the root cause was not CRLF at all. It was because in the script I executed an external program such as Ant, but did not put a CALL before Ant. So, make sure you CALL every external program used in your batch script.

If batch file has unix line endings (line separators) this can sometimes happen.

Just unix2dos it and problem should be solved.

Here is the issue and how to fix it. The issue is a bug or a feature in DOS batch cmd program. First the clear problem statement. If you have a DOS batch file with target labels like, ":dothis", and at the end of the label you do not have space then the batch file will not work if the line ending are UNIX line endings. This means you have to run unix2dos on the file before you can use it.

The root cause is the DOS command line processor, (shell program), takes the UNIX end-of-line character as part of the label. Since the go to part never uses this as the label, it is never found since such a label truly does not exist. The solution is to put an extra space at the end of each target label, or even better every line. Now UNIX end of lines do not come to play since the space acts as the separator and it all works.