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could not save because write access was not granted (Mac OS)

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
October 1, 2010
56 replies
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I keep getting the above error when working off of my xserve in photoshop. It is new in CS5 which we have recently upgraded to. Several people at my office are getting it. Sometimes it displays a random name with afp in front of it (I assume it is the temp name when photoshop is swapping out the new file for the old file.) It only seems to happen with psd and psb files. I have write access to the volume in question and it doesn't matter if I am the only one accessing the folder or not. I can save as and it seems to work; but it does delete the file.

Very frustrating. Anybody have any ideas? My IT guys are struggling with it, and one of them used to work on the Flash team as well as at Apple.

Problem or error

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Correct answer Jeff-Adobe

Hi Criss,

I get what you write. I realize the issue may not be with you.

Sorry for talking past each other. If changing the code in PS to be more like other adobe apps is not an option I think only Apple can fix this particular issue we have isolated.

Might be worth a tech note from Adobe still since it is a pretty bad outcome of the issue as things are now that only seems to affect Photoshop and Xsan 3 customers.

As an end customer it's very easy to get the impression that this is a

Photoshop bug since the issue only occurs in Photoshop.

Once again if you want my help to isolate the effects of the issue I can help with access to our system to isolate.

I am sorry for my tone in last posts, issues like these are very frustrating but I should not let that frustration result in unfair comments here. (I would edit out the quark comment if I could).

Hi everyone,

The recent Mac OS X 10.8.4 released yesterday has specifically named the following fix:

Resolves an issue saving files to an Xsan volume from certain applications

referenced from this Apple KB article. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5730

If you are still experiencing this issue, please update to 10.8.4 and then re-test in your environment. Please let us know if you are still experiencing issues.

The KB article also mentions this fix:

A fix for an issue that may prevent changes to files made over NFS from displaying
A fix for an issue that may prevent documents from being saved to a server using SMB

In general this OS update has a number of network save fixes in it that we recommend users try out.

Thanks,

Jeff

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H

Holger Netterby

Participant

Hello

I have the same problem as reported above at one of my costumers.

Server used: Helios EtherShare (latest patches)

Clients: 10.6.4 - 10.6.7

This problem started with CS5 (no problem with CS3 and CS1)

It only occurs with .PSD files. Never with .TIF, .JPG or any other filetypes in Photoshop CS5

It also only occurs with Photoshop. No problem with InDesign, Illustrator or any other third party applications.

I am also intrested in why Photoshop should save in a diffent matter than InDesign or Illustrator. Suggesting that files get lost in these other applications saves because of not using "safe save" is just absurd. You and I would have heard about this a million times from the users by now. A lost file is ALWAYS reported - we all know that. Why not try to implement the same "unsafe save" mechanism as the other applications use with great success?

Chris Cox

Legend

Photoshop does a safe save, and uses newer APIs in some cases because Photoshop already moved to Cocoa and the other apps have not.

Photoshop saves PSD files just the same as it saves other files - there is no difference in the APIs used.

Yes, we know that files do get lost in other apps because they don't do a safe save. We aren't going to intentionally change our code to make you lose data.

But so far this still looks like a major bug in an OS API causing problems on *some* file servers.

And yet we can never reproduce the problem here with any of our file servers.

A

Anonymous

>> Photoshop saves PSD files just the same as it saves other files - there is no difference in the APIs used.

If there would be no difference in API's people won't keep reporting this CS5 save error on a broad basis of file servers. Just check back in this thread on how many and different server OSes the error appears.

We did not pay attention to it first but we can confirm what Holger Netterby just reported: the CS5 save error occures only when working with .PSD files. It never happens with .TIF or other formats. Still a network or file server issue?

>> But so far this still looks like a major bug in an OS API causing problems on *some* file servers.

>> And yet we can never reproduce the problem here with any of our file servers.

We contacted HELIOS about this problem and they found a way how to reproduce this specific CS5 error.

The important point is: it's not limited to HELIOS EtherShare servers as long as you can access file resource fork information. For example HELIOS used their method successfully on a plain OSX Server's share - no HELIOS EtherShare involved - to force the error. Read prom-sup's post how it's done.

btw:

We opened a Adobe Support Case about this problem and were told that the usage of CS4 and CS5 is not supported on network shares. All files to be worked on should be copied to the local drive first, then worked on, then copied back.

Don't you think Adobe's graphical industry customers have better things to do then shuffling Terabytes of .PSD files between servers and clients only to work fine with Photoshop?

W

win-doh

Participant

Well, the answer in my case was simple, after reading some of this I tried saving to a different drive...no problem, good luck all

A

Anonymous

We started to encounter this exact error message after upgrading 3 workstations to OSX 10.6 and Photoshop CS5. The error appears on a random basis on all CS5 stations, roughly once in 3 days. Other Photoshop installations like CS4 or older are not effected.

All data being worked on is located on our SUN server running HELIOS EtherShare.

FYI we never had problems working network-based with PhotoShop since the days of MacOS 8.

Our tech guys found a way to force this CS5 error to occure by setting a write-lock onto the edited files resource path.

After provoking the error by hitting "Save" there were now two write-locks present on the resource path: the one set by ourselfs and a new one set by the CS5 client while the data path of the file still had no write-locks.

We then opened support case 0182160238 to adress this problem on March 14th.

Today we got an automated answer which directed us to info note http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/406/kb406793.html

Long story short: Adobe will not support any network-related CS5 issues. WTF?!

A

Anonymous

Hello,

we are the "tech guys" of which Foli_RM speaks;-)

You must set a write-lock (DENY_WR) onto the edited files _resource fork_ . Then save the edited file in PS5 and the error occurs.

Greetings

B

bretperry

Participating Frequently

Problem has recently surfaced for us with upgrade to CS5.

OSX10.6.5 iMac and Xenon clients with Xserve 10.5.8 and Xsans.
Active directory with about 7 acls in use (and sometimes many more due to 10.6.4/6 Finder bug that duplicates acls on folder copy).
Managed preferences for OS clients.

get access error with name of temp file and original psd or eps on server is gone.
multiple save attempts fail. save-as works.

Chris, really appreciate your commitment and comments on the design philosophy behind PSD's saves.
Moving to Cocoa APIs is brave but needed as Carbon's days are doubtless numbered.

If I can offer any further info to help get to the root of this issue in CS5 or if you would be interested in us testing with a special version of PS, let me know.

A

Anonymous

On our setup, we think (tentatively) that we have found the culprit.

We turned off the DFS service on the server (which I believe is an SBS 2003... I'm just the Mac guy, so I don't deal with the PC servers directly).

We were only using the replication feature of DFS.

We also use ExtremeZ-IP and we had this save issue with both the older and the newest ExtremeZ-IP.

As soon as we turned off DFS/Replication, the server was more responsive and these errors stopped appearing.

The issue originally appeared for us as soon as we upgraded to Snow Leopard and Adobe CS5.

It's been about 4 weeks since we made that change, and so far so good (we hope!).

Hope that helps someone...

-Rob Steward

J

JohnKGibson

Participating Frequently

Yep...

Getting the exact same thing here at my office...

Just had one of the production guys in my office bitching about it.

OS 10.5.8

Photoshop CS 5

Working off desktop, not the servers... also if working off the server its windows 2003, extremezip IP 7XX (latest)

One of the interesting things is that when he gets the error... it does it for every file.. even a new one he creates.

Fun fun fun fun... NOT

Chris Cox

Legend

If you get that error saving to the desktop, then you have a very different problem from the server issue being discussed here.

Working locally, that would indicate a permissions problem or something has corrupted the state of the OS or memory.

As usual: try disabling all third party plugins, all haxies and utilities that might interfere with Photoshop (especially file system utilities).

W

Widowsoft

Participant

Hi

One of my customers had same issue they run Xserve Raid SL Server. and use CS5

used terminal and noticed the permissions of the files were the POSIX permissions which did not relate to the Login authorization of ACL's gave posix owner read/write and appears OK now.

What I ment to say was the POSIX permissions were read only . ODD but that seems to have sorted for now.

Martin Orpen

Participating Frequently

Yeah, the permissions issue is confusing because Photoshop *should* be able to overwrite the hidden temporary file anyway... all it should do is warn you that the dot prefix isn't a good idea.

What exactly were you seeing with the ACLs?

All of the .afpDeleted* files that litter our server have identical permissions to the ordinary working images in the same folders.

Martin Orpen

Participating Frequently

Check your Photoshop Edit Log.

Both Macs running CS5 that have this problem on our network are registering the save with the incorrect file name in their logs:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/2011/Jan/msg00131.html

Can't offer any explanation as to why Photoshop is doing this because it is a rare event considering how many files we're saving.

My guess is that the remote machine is busy and that, if Photoshop can't get the information it needs within a set time limit, it screws up. The reason for the guess is that ISTR that when throwing this error, Photoshop would also sometimes show Save As dialog boxes with empty file listings or file listings that would appear with a noticeable time lag.

Chris Cox

Legend

As for the filename -- that's a temporary file, the first part of the safe save.

Then Photoshop calls an OS routine to swap the temp and the file being replaced.

The OS can rename the file as part of the process.

Photoshop doesn't have a timeout like that.

And the save dialog is an OS dialog, not controlled by Photoshop.

This is sounding more and more like another OS bug.

Martin Orpen

Participating Frequently

But why is Photoshop making a log entry saying that a file is saved with a temporary file name? That strikes me as odd because it looks as if Photoshop is treating this incorrect behaviour as an ordinary, valid save operation.

The only thing that the user sees is the error dialog stating that it doesn't have permission to write/overwrite a file with the same temporary name. When what has actually happened is that Photoshop *has* already written the hidden temporary file and then either it or the OS has deleted the original.

Unfortunately it's difficult to isolate the problem because it only started happening last year with two new CS5 installations on new Mac Pros running 10.6.5/6. On older Macs we are still using older versions of Photoshop and they've never exhibited this behaviour.

Thinking about it further I'm certain that this rogue behaviour also produces Save As dialog boxes where the both the file list and the file name fields were both empty -- meaning that either Photoshop or the OS (or both) had lost any reference to what the file should be called and whether it already existed in the destination folder.

If this were just an OS bug then I'd expect to see it happening with other applications -- but honestly cannot recall any occasions when this happened.

I did notice that CS4 would often refuse to save files to both remote and local drives if you mounted/unmounted other volumes (not those that you were using) while working on an image.

HTH

C

C42DCreative

Participating Frequently

I agree, its totally wack to point fingers. It only happens PHOTOSHOP guys. Not Illustrator, Not InDesign, Not Apple Keynote. Not anything else. PHOTOSHOP.

For $1499 I expect to be able to save to my server without this kind of Bull&*(#&$ happening.

GOYA. Get off your asses and fix it. Period. Its your product that has the problem, not us, not apple.

Signed,

Pissed Off

Chris Cox

Legend

I know it must be frustrating not to have an answer to what seems from the outside to be a simple problem. But it is not as simple as it seems from the outside, and we have a great deal more experience troubleshooting these kinds of errors than most of our users.

We are also frustrated at constantly being blamed for something that we have spent a great deal of time researching and repeatedly found to not involve any code actually under our control. We know from painful experience that these things happen, and can look like it is the applications fault when the error lies in some other part of the system (OS, server, etc.). Different applications using the same APIs, but in slightly different ways, or with slightly different timing can cause bugs to be exposed in the OS and external devices. We've seen that time and again, and we have worked with the makers of the OS and network devices/servers to resolve those problems.

I almost wish it was a bug in our code, because then we could fix it and get on with life. But we have yet to identify this as a bug in our code, but have identified many bugs in external code and devices.

We are not trying to point fingers, we are trying to help our customers get their problems solved so they can continue to do their work. Demanding a fix in Photoshop for something outside of Photoshop's control isn't going to accomplish anything. Working with us to determine the cause of the error in your networking setup - that can help you get your network fixed and you back to productive work again.

C

C42DCreative

Participating Frequently

well, who can argue with that? I guess thats well put, more than my outburst. I have worked with Adobe to help find and solve a bug in Photoshop 5 and in the end it turned out it was my OS that had to be re-installed, so maybe you are right. It was cool to actually get an email from Russell too...

However, when I am sitting here working (on a sunday) and every 5 minutes I get the error about saving files to the server, and all week long my employees are asking about the same error, well, I want to blame Adobe of course.

So how do I fix my networking setup? its a mac mini snow leopard server straight out of the box with the most generic setup imaginable.

A

Anonymous

So same setup, one 10.6.4 laptop browsing the folder at the same time as a write operation, both using SMB to mount the volume.

SMB (on Xinet) is even more unforgiving than AFP:

When you see an error, the files goes, and there is no dot file left either.

Two different error messages are used:

Could not save "filename.psd" because write access was not granted

Could not save "filename.psd" because an unexpected end-of-file was encuntered

Sometimes Save and Save-As will balk at using the same name even though it doesn't show on lsof as being used (I should have tried to 'touch' the same path to see if it was a server lock but I didn't think to at the time) if you change the name it saves fine, try the original name, no-go, it says there's an unexpected EOF. Other times it will save fine after an error that deletes the file.

There are two movies illustrating this (unlisted links)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qvx032eRTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybXFybcATFA

(this one shows the file dissapearing)

Screeshots are available on Picasa (shots prefixed with SMB):

PhotoshopFileSavingIssue

Now while Finder is a common among element in this (can anyone else say that Finder is "looking" at these files like in my tests?)

However we only started seeing this when we upgraded our Digital team from CS4 to CS5.

This seems to be an issue with these servers as reported here:

AFP on Extreme-ZIP - GroupLogic

AFP on Mac OS X Server - sean-gloss

AFP on Xinet - brunerd

SMB on Xinet - brunerd

SMB on Win2003 - olafbrand

So, do we think all these vendors have broken implementations of SMB and AFP?

Chris Cox

Legend

The OS is still common there, and Photoshop CS5 did move to Cocoa APIs for many things. There's still a possibility that the Cocoa APIs have a problem that the older Carbon APIs didn't (or had less of a problem).

But when we test saving on SMB and AFP (including EZIP), we don't see any problems.

A

Anonymous

Thanks for sharing this background.

Our team has yet to reproduce with CS5 and ExtremeZ-IP so it would be very helpful if one of you who can reproduce against ExtremeZ-IP connects with our team so we can work together to capture the packet trace and other data we need to completely understand the issue.

Thanks!

- Reid

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