Read only cannot save Error message

[notbugs]

Hi Dingo - that's gotta be worth trying but we don't really know what's causing the read-only error. e.g. it might be a problem with the backup file somehow. Ultimately, @notbugs might need to upload his project somewhere where people can download it - but without it needing to be an email attachment.

Well, i tried to post a link here but the forum settings would not allow it. But i will attach a textfile with a link to my project on Google Drive for anyone to download. I hope that will work and that someone else who uses Windows can see what's up with my session. 
  Project link.txt (Size: 82 bytes / Downloads: 3)

[johne53]

Hi @notbugs

I downloaded your project and the good news is that none of its files are showing up here as "read only". The other bit of good news (or maybe it's bad news) is that it saves normally here without any errors. Do they only happen occasionally?

[johne53]

I thought of something overnight, in case you'd like to try these steps:-

1) Temporarily rename the folder containing the original session that you zipped up - i.e. the folder called New Anthem
2) Now download your own zip file and unzip it to the same location where your original session was.
3) Now open Mixbus and see if it still gives you the Save error.

[notbugs]

Hi @notbugs

I downloaded your project and the good news is that none of its files are showing up here as "read only". The other bit of good news (or maybe it's bad news) is that it saves normally here without any errors. Do they only happen occasionally?

Thank you for checking it out. To answer your question, the error appears everytime i try to open a session.

[notbugs]

I thought of something overnight, in case you'd like to try these steps:-

1) Temporarily rename the folder containing the original session that you zipped up - i.e. the folder called New Anthem
2) Now download your own zip file and unzip it to the same location where your original session was.
3) Now open Mixbus and see if it still gives you the Save error.

Hi again! I tried out doing what you suggested but it did not work either. I still get the read only session dialogue. I've attached a screenshot of that dialogue as it appears when i try to open a previously created session.

[johne53]

Hopefully owo (Jeff) might chip in to let us know if he found a solution - but after looking at the code, only 3 things can cause this:-

1) If the file ending in .ardour is marked as read-only - OR
2) If that file's folder is marked as read-only - OR
3) If the drive volume itself is read-only.

Item 3 might seem unlikely but it can happen when an OS doesn't fully support the volume partition. For example, MacOS doesn't fully support NTFS. So if you mount an NTFS volume in MacOS it'll treat it as read-only.

[x42]

Could it be that the session was previously opened by another user. e.g. Administrator?
and now Mixbus runs as normal user, and hence there are missing permissions to overwrite a file owned by Admin?

Check "Properties" of the .ardour session file.

Meanwhile save-as or save-snapshot may work. (the latter only if the session-bundle folder itself is writable by the user).

[sunrat]

Do you suspend or hibernate the computer? Maybe it's something to do with Windows' Fast Startup (one of the least useful features ever).

[notbugs]

Could it be that the session was previously opened by another user. e.g. Administrator?
and now Mixbus runs as normal user, and hence there are missing permissions to overwrite a file owned by Admin?

Check "Properties" of the .ardour session file.

Meanwhile save-as or save-snapshot may work. (the latter only if the session-bundle folder itself is writable by the user).

No, it has always been used by one user which is myself and my account has admin privileges. The properties of all files are the same. The folder attributes may look suspicious at first since it says write protect. But that is by default for any folders in Windows so it has always looked like that. I don't know all the technicalities around that attribute but it is not possible to change since it will always revert to the same state. I have browsed Microsofts support around this and there seem to be no clear answer why this flag works like this but trust me, it is the same for any folder i have for music, documents, pictures, video etc. So it looked just like this before i started getting these problems. I have also gone through all the privileges for my folders and there are nothing that shows that any file would not be accessible in any way. I use a bunch of other programs in the same folder tree such as Ableton, Sound Forge and Acid and with none of those program i have any issues at all when it comes to open and saving files. This is an isolated thing that only occurs with Mixbus.

[notbugs]

Do you suspend or hibernate the computer? Maybe it's something to do with Windows' Fast Startup (one of the least useful features ever).

I always run a cold start every day and shut the machine down completely in the evening. Throughout the day it might hibernate once in a while, but i have never had any issues with it. Besides when i have any problem i always perform a cold reboot so i know that my machine is in a fresh state when i start troubleshooting. But that you for your input.