Reading multiple files from a directory, R

I am having difficulty with one step in my code to read in a folder of text files and convert it to a dtm. The problem is that, for some reason, my computer is only able to intermittently establish a connection with the text files in the directory. The error that returns is: ``` Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection In addition: Warning message: In file(con, "r") : cannot open file '[file name]': No such file or directory ``` However, I can easily open these files in any text editor, as well as in python. Any ideas why I might be able to establish the connection sometimes and not others? My code is below: ``` files <- as.character(list.files(path="[file path]")) readLines(files[1]) #here is where the error occurs, for example n <- length(files) #this is my loop subtitles <- character(n) subtitle <- character(1) for (i in 1:n){ subtitle <- as.character(readLines(files[i])) subtitle <- iconv(subtitle, to="UTF8") subtitle <- tolower(subtitle) subtitle <- as.character(paste(subtitle, collapse=" ")) subtitles[i] <- subtitle[1] } ```