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

[sean-gloss]

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.

[billlp]

Hi Kurt and everyone

There is a free download on the Seagate site.

If anyone needs it, they can find it on the Seagate.com site under support>by product>portable external>(choose your device) and then NTFS Driver for Mac OS will be listed on the right.

It doesn't mention Paragon, but the Seagate tech support guy said it was.

[Kurt Lang]

Ah! Thanks for the update, billip. That's a nice deal for Seagate owners. Though if it were me, I'd still reformat the drive as ExFAT and eliminate the need for a third party driver.

[billlp]

I agree-going forward I'll reformat the drive

[Joybells59]

I have this problem with save as - I have updated my operating system and cannot save my new file with amendments.  I am the only one working on the file? 

[kellyjdrummer3]

I use external drives on a mid 2012 Macbook Pro 15" 500g with 8g RAM. I never save locally, so, I format my externals as exFAT and the issue disappears. Not a guess, a solution. I use five externals and all of them save in Photoshop CS5 Ext. (Windows 7) and CS6 Ext. (Yosemite).

Format as exFAT. Worked for me.

(Reposted from an earlier reply.)

[Joybells59]

Had a look this morning - the issue was that the driver on the external hard drive wasn't installed after I had had the MacBook restored recently.  Having just re-installed the driver I can now save to it.  thanks for the tip off about formatting the drive - that's what alerted me to the driver!

[mybrotherbob]

t've had this occur at 3 different companies using  CS3 & 4. i'm an I.T idiot but was told it was something to do with version cue and the server. in all cases it was fixed outside the retouching studio so had nothing to do with the workstation. sorry cant be more specific but that might point you in the right direction

[Chris Cox]

was told it was something to do with version cue and the server.

Unless you're using VersionCue, it shouldn't enter into the problem (it isn't involved in normal file saves/opens).

More likely it was just an issue on the server.

[brunerd]

The following shots are of test files from a production server running Xinet Fullpress, I mention the extremeZIP article because it is the only seemingly solidly documented article on an issue that quite a few people seem to be having.

So I ran some tests to recreate the problem, because if it can't be recreated it's not a problem in the IT world I know because I am in the IT Dept at an advertising agency here in Chicago administrating over a 130 Macs… so that aside, here's a long winded run down of the tests

I've posted screenshots at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/116782194976328390062/PhotoshopFileSavingIssue?authkey=Gv1sRgCMK3xpaVrIfFgAE

And a movie of a Save action stuck attempting to save to .afpDeleted file while the source file is not on the server:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FgmaaPamvc

These are unlisted galleries and videos and will be removed when no longer needed

-----------------

2 machines are used for the test

Machine #1 is running OS X 10.6.4 and is browsing the folder with Finder

machine #2 also 10.6.4 with CS5 is saving to the same file at the moment computer #1 is browsing it with Finder and generating a preview

Most times, the file is deleted and replaced, Finder will "kick you out" of the folder when the file is resaved, or other times show no preview, the timing needs to be precise (yet we have users who aren't trying this on purpose at all and manage to have this happen to them!).

When a write error does occur sometimes it says:

A)

"Could not save "name" because write access was not granted" with the correct name used and the files remains.

B)

"Could not save "name" because write access was not granted" with the correct name used and the original file is gone but a .afpDeletedxxxxxxxx file is found in the directory via Terminal

C)

"Could not save "name" because write access was not granted" with the name .afpDeletedxxxxxxxxxx used and the original file is gone although the .afpDeleted file is found via terminal, it can be copied to a name that Finder will not hide, but it's hidden flags are set and 'chflags nohidden' needs to be run for it to appear in Finder

In scenario C, Photoshop will attempt to save to the .afpDeleted name with using Save even though the document name is being displayed properly in the Photoshop window. Using lsof it can be seen that Photoshop have the resource fork in use (only after the 2nd save attempt though), closing all open documents will still have this file in use, only upon quitting will it not be.

I wish I had taken a look at the .afpDeleted flags to see if it was locked or not during this, but lsof results of it being in use is pretty weird!

So here's some more puzzling evidence, thanks for your help.

[Chris Cox]

The .afp deleted files are not Photoshop's.

Those are from the AFP protocol, or the ExtremeZIP server code (most likely the latter).

[brunerd]

Running Xinet Fullpress which uses the K-AShare for AFP protocol implementation... we also have the SMB protocol running on it as well, so I'll do the same test but with SMB protocol and see what happens.

[LongScreenName]

I just scanned one of our file servers and found 179 .afpDeleted files. Many come from Photoshop, but I also see Keynote, Excel and Powerpoint files. I wonder if this gave the users any trouble... or if they noticed missing data. This tends to back up Chris's point that other programs can emit silent errors.

[Andre Schneider]

I'm pretty sure that if 179 files were lost, the users would have noticed and you would know. These errors were probably "auto-fixed" by the app that generated it or didn't cause a file to be lost (which is what bothers me most with CS5)

[KenAllen]

In our setup (Mac OS X 10.10.5 connecting with AFP to various different netatalk server implementions), the issue crops up reliably (among other times) when our anti-virus software (currently ESET Cyber Security 6.0.14) is configured with Preferences -> Real-time Protection -> Scan On -> File Creation -> checked (enabled).  I would like to continue to enable Real-time Protection on File Creation.

I wanted to inquire whether the "Unique Filename" Adobe PhotoShop creates during the Safe Save can be used to configure ESET to *not* scan, say, a certain file extension (though clearly not JPG or TIFF) or something.

[brunerd]

There might be hope the files are still there!

While researching I found this out...

Go into terminal, to get to the directory where you want to look:

cd [then drag the folder into the terminal window]

and run: ls -la

This will show all files including "dot files" with a period at the front that Finder will not show

If you find one, you need to change the name and undo the hidden flag, here's how:

mv .afpDeletedxxxxxx newname.psd

chflags nohidden newname.psd

[sean-gloss]

For what it is worth, I get a lot of these errors and file deletions in my setup which is a snow leopard machine with a snow leopard xserve. I never got them in CS4. And I get both the .afpDeleted name as well as the correct name in the error dialogue box. 

[mybrotherbob]

relates to the problem but for cs4, might

shed some light

http://www.outsmartcomputers.com/2009/05/issues-with-version-cue-cs4/

[Tai_Lao]

Your link is broken. When you click on it, it begins with “http://http://www…

Let me try to fix it for you:

http://www.outsmartcomputers.com/2009/05/issues-with-version-cue-cs4/

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm going to have our engineers look into the behavior you are experiencing and fix it if its an issue with ExtremeZ-IP.

Group Logic has a dedicated maintenance engineering team ready to fix problems with ExtremeZ-IP. They will review all of the information posted on this thread.

You can help us find the cause faster if you can open a support case here: http://support.grouplogic.com/?page_id=39 We may ask for more information to help us find the problem.

Once we find the problem, if its in ExtremeZ-IP, we will notify anyone who has an open case what we have learned, the schedule for fixing it and work with you to test the fix once its done.  As you can imagine, some fixes take longer than others but consistently reproducing the problem is critical first step.

If the problem turns out to be outside of our control, we will pass along the information we to the appropriate contacts at Adobe, Apple or other vendor and assist them in any way we can to address the problem.

With your help, we'll do our best to help resolve this situation promptly.

- Reid

T. Reid Lewis
President
Group Logic, Inc.

[brunerd]

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]

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.

[Guest]

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

[C42DCreative]

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]

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.

[C42DCreative]

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.