“Insufficient Permission” error 13 on save/save as

[eufemistic]

I have to say, I am really growing to hate protools 11. Any help would be deeply appreciated.

Here’s what happened:

I have a 6-month-old iMac that I installed protools 11 on. It took some time and effort installing patches to get it to work right. It still has issues freezing sometimes, but I can suffer through the errors.

I will be traveling soon and I bought a new Macbook Pro to take with me. I took the G-Drive I was using for backing up my iMac, hooked it up to my new macbook pro, and copied over my applications and music right off the gdrive. It looked like everything worked like a charm until I opened up protools and then tried to “save as” one of my songs. (Yes, I have my iLok inserted into the usb port.)

First of all, it will not “auto-save” because it says I do not have sufficient permission. It will not let me save the song file at all, whether I do a “save” or a “save as”.

Here is the autosave error:

Pro Tools was unable to Auto Backup your session.

If your session is on a read-only drive, you must disable "AutoSave" by unchecking "Enable Session File Auto Backup" (located in the Operations tab of the Pro Tools Preferences dialog) to avoid this error.

(Error was: You do not have appropriate access privileges (13) )

However, my macbook pro is not a read-only drive. I am admin on this machine so it should not be giving me any grief about privileges.

Here is the “save” error:
Could not save as “songfilemacbook" because You do not have appropriate access privileges (13) while opening "xzbgPYBPzwhzHHBX".

This Mac:
Macbook Pro 15” Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP112.0138.B07
SMC Version (system): 2.18f10

Macintosh HD:
Available: 149.59 GB (149,592,215,552 bytes)
Capacity: 250.14 GB (250,140,434,432 bytes)
Mount Point: /
File System: Journaled HFS+
Writable: Yes
Ignore Ownership: No
BSD Name: disk0s2
Physical Drive:
Media Name: APPLE SSD SM0256F Media
Medium Type: SSD
Protocol: PCI
Internal: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

[YYR123]

Search the DUC b/c I remember having that error and don't remember what fixed it - but the answer lies in the search engine !!!

I think it had to do with my permissions...and I might have wiped the disk and started over idk it's been several years ago and I've slept since then

[eufemistic]

I did search but I didn’t turn up the same error. Here’s the unfortunate thing I just discovered, however.

For this new macbook I had to create a different “username” for it, I think because of homesharing or whatever. To make matters worse, when I copied everything off my other computer’s g-drive, I actually somehow created another user on this macbook.

After I posted my original issue, I “logged off” this computer and logged back on with the other user and everything works. This is problematic for other reasons not related to protools, but that is why I could not save. Somehow the software will only work with that other user and that is the law of unintended consequences I suppose. At this point I kinda wanna do a factory reset and start all over.

Thanks for your reply.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by eufemistic

I took the G-Drive I was using for backing up my iMac, hooked it up to my new macbook pro, and copied over my applications and music right off the gdrive.

This was a bad idea. It would have only worked properly for applications that are entirely self contained, such as Firefox or TextWrangler.

Originally Posted by eufemistic

It looked like everything worked like a charm until I opened up protools and then tried to “save as” one of my songs. (Yes, I have my iLok inserted into the usb port.)

First of all, it will not “auto-save” because it says I do not have sufficient permission. It will not let me save the song file at all, whether I do a “save” or a “save as”.

Here is the autosave error:

Pro Tools was unable to Auto Backup your session.

If your session is on a read-only drive, you must disable "AutoSave" by unchecking "Enable Session File Auto Backup" (located in the Operations tab of the Pro Tools Preferences dialog) to avoid this error.

(Error was: You do not have appropriate access privileges (13) )

However, my macbook pro is not a read-only drive. I am admin on this machine so it should not be giving me any grief about privileges.

Is the drive you were trying to save to on your MacBook Pro the same drive that is used for startup? If so, then even if you are admin, you do not have write privileges to all directories on the drive.

Switch to the Finder, open up the Macintosh HD, and make sure you are at the root level. You should see four folders; Applications, Library, System, and Users. Press Shift+Command+N to create a new folder. Did the OS prompt you for a username and password? It probably did. Why? Because you do not have read/write access to the root of the startup volume. If you Get Info (Command+I) on the Macintosh HD, and tab open Sharing & Permissions, you will see that system (root) has read & write privileges. Wheel (root group) and everyone else have read only privileges.

Even trying to create a .rtf file from TextEdit at the root of the Macintosh HD as an administrator user results in an error.

Originally Posted by eufemistic

Here is the “save” error:
Could not save as “songfilemacbook" because You do not have appropriate access privileges (13) while opening "xzbgPYBPzwhzHHBX".

That xzbgPYBPzwhzHHBX is a temp file. Most programs actually make a duplicate of your original file, save your changes to the duplicate, then delete the original file, and finally rename the duplicate file to the name you specified when you clicked Save. I digress, if only slightly, to show that this is part of the save process. If it cannot create a new file within the directory, then the save will fail.

Originally Posted by eufemistic

Macintosh HD:
Available: 149.59 GB (149,592,215,552 bytes)
Capacity: 250.14 GB (250,140,434,432 bytes)
Mount Point: /
File System: Journaled HFS+
Writable: Yes

This means that the disk is writable, unlike a DVD-ROM that is read only.

Originally Posted by eufemistic

Ignore Ownership: No

You cannot ignore ownership on the startup volume, so this is expected.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by eufemistic

For this new macbook I had to create a different “username” for it, I think because of homesharing or whatever. To make matters worse, when I copied everything off my other computer’s g-drive, I actually somehow created another user on this macbook.

You can only create a user through either Setup Assistant, Migration Assistant, or Apple menu-->System Preferences-->Users and Groups.

Originally Posted by eufemistic

After I posted my original issue, I “logged off” this computer and logged back on with the other user and everything works. This is problematic for other reasons not related to protools, but that is why I could not save. Somehow the software will only work with that other user and that is the law of unintended consequences I suppose. At this point I kinda wanna do a factory reset and start all over.

Thanks for your reply.

The access privileges for the files in question were only allowing one user ID (uid) to access the files for both read & write operations.

[ryhiller]

Hi guys,

I apparently made the same mistake. What are the appropriate steps to fix the problem? I had a crash, and copied files from a backup drive onto my new computer. Thanks for your help!

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by ryhiller

Hi guys,

I apparently made the same mistake. What are the appropriate steps to fix the problem? I had a crash, and copied files from a backup drive onto my new computer.

Which files did you copy? Where did you copy them to?

[davidraven]

so, how do i change priviledges so anyone can read or write on any of my drives? i can't seem to find it. i created an additional user (myself) to try so solve some other issues, and i want to be able to read/write etc. from either user, or guests, too. nobody else uses this computer.
thanks
raven

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by davidraven

so, how do i change priviledges so anyone can read or write on any of my drives?

If those drives are not the system boot drive, Get Info (Command+I) on the drive, tab open the Sharing & Permissions section, and enable Ignore ownership on this volume.