VSC python won't open .txt files in the same directory (relative path only works for the top level of the workspace folder)

Question

I get: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:'movies.txt' for this line:

with open("movies.txt", "r", encoding= "utf-8") as movies:

So far (from what I've tried) I'm figuring it's a VSC workspace/file nesting depth issue...maybe some settings I don't know exist somewhere.

Is there a way to fix this? Should I stop using nested files? How many levels of nested files are okay? (I'm 3 levels down from my main workspace folder) New to coding and VSC (using desktop version) so not sure what's good practice for organising files.

Some stuff I've checked/tried:

• The files are definitely in the same directory.
• Renaming the file
• Moving everything to a different directory
• Testing with completely independent code and .txt file, both in the same directory (same result)
• The full file path works fine (but I need the relative path as I need to upload the code and .txt file later)
• Restarted VSC
• Restarted PC
• Updated the launch.json file as per: Can't open text file on VSC with python
• Asked chatGPt 3.5
• Disabled recent extensions
• Opening the .txt file from the command line with python (opens and reads fine)
• Moving the python file and the .txt file to the top level of the workspace folder (works fine)
• Removing and resetting my workspace folder.
• Adding the folder immediately containing the files to the workspace directly.

Answer 1

import os
print(os.getcwd())

Check your current working directory or you can specify full path to the file like below :

with open("/full/path/to/your/movies.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8") as movies:
    # code