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

Explorer ,
Oct 01, 2010 Oct 01, 2010

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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.

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Jun 06, 2013 Jun 06, 2013

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 mad
...

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New Here ,
Apr 23, 2013 Apr 23, 2013

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Hi Chris,

I have narrowed it down to Photoshop saving failing to work (or erasing file at attempt att save if on local Xsan volume) ONLY on Xsan 3.0 (so basically any Xsan client on 10.8, so basically all new machines from now on..)

Xsan 2.3 volumes (10.7) and earlier works fine.

As a workaround we will have to downgrade one Xsan client to 10.7 (Xsan 2.3) re-share that volume to all our other clients and disable Xsan on 8 clients until the issue is resolved.

It is great that you are trying to work around Apple filesystem bugs, especially since a lot of Pro customers using Adobe and potentially Xsan will be affected by them in general. However...

Since this does not appear to be an issue in any other Adobe product other than Photoshop the logical conclusion here is that it is not Apple's filesystem bugs causing this particular issue, but rather the way your software is written.

Have you checked / logged this in your own bug-tracking systems?

Can you reproduce the issue?

Adobes track record for fixing (or even supporting) basic saving to network / non-local storage is not great (just take the exporting larger than 4GB files to network share via Media Encoder as an example) so it would be great if Adobe could nail this particular issue before it becomes a larger one, as system admins in production houses over the world slowly migrate up their Xsan installations.

Let me know if I can provide any more info/details to help you get to the bottom of this.

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Apr 23, 2013 Apr 23, 2013

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That does sound like one of the bugs that we filed with Apple. I'm not sure of it's status.

No, the logical conclusion is usually that Photoshop does more error checking than most applications - so we catch a lot more OS errors (because we've seen so many and added additional error checking over the years).

And yes, we investigate all of these -- so far very, very few turn out to be our bugs, and almost all are reproduceable in other software once you know what is happening in the OS code.

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New Here ,
Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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Hi Chris,

so the added error checking in Photoshop (that is not added to Premiere, AE, Illustrator etc) is potentially causing dataloss on a StorNext compliant filesystem (Xsan). So the options are:

1. Go with added error checking in all apps if it is the way to go (and work with Apple to make sure your added security works).

2. Remove the "added error checking" from Photoshop since it causes issues compared to your "less safe" saving in other apps.

3. Do nothing, assume the issues are on the OS / Filesystem level and refer to Apple when your customers have issues.

1 feels far fetched, 2 is what I would like, 3 is what I fear will happen..

I don't intend to come of as a pessimist, but it is in your software this happens, you clearly have the solution in your other apps.

You most influential and important customers are the ones most lightly to work on shared storage in general and with your push into the video editing market potential Xsan customers must be a priority, so to get to the bottom of this feels like it should be a priority. As your customer I hope it is.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to reply and hopefully bring this forward internally.

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Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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No, the error checking is telling you about external problems that cause dataloss.

The error checking does not cause the problems, it just informs you about problems that already exist in your OS or fileserver.

Again, we have researched all the reported issues.  Yes, Apple has a lot of filesystem/fileserver bugs.

No, the other apps are not a solution, they are just not noticing the problems with the OS and fileservers - so you silently lose data.

The extra error checking has been added to Photoshop because we have seen and debugged so many OS and fileserver bugs over the years, and don't want our customers to lose data if they can avoid it.

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New Here ,
Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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The irony here is of course that whatever error checking you have introduced in Photoshop, that you don't have in other apps, now is causing exactly what it was intended to resolve.

I understand that it can't be easy working with a 20+ year old filesystem like HFS that has been patched forever. And I am sure you are right that there are a lot of bugs. But in this particular case it is an issue causing dataloss. It is easy to reproduce. You have saving mechanisms in other apps that does not experience the issue.

Just to be clear, when you say:

"Again, we have researched all the reported issues."

Do you mean that you have verified *this* particular issue (Saving from Photoshop deletes file from storage if storage is an Xsan Volume mounted on an Xsan 3.0 client) and that you are isolating the best course of action to resolve it for your customers, or is that a generic answer you fall back on anytime anyone reports an issue that could be related to the OS or filesystem underneath your software?

If you have verified an issue that can cause dataloss for your customers are you considering making a tech note somewhere about it to help your customers prevent the dataloss they will definitely expereience if they update their existing Xsan infrastructure and clients?

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Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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I don't know what your *exact* issue is because I don't have your system.

We have spent a lot of time tracking down Apple's filesystem/fileserver bugs and working around as many of them as we can.  I recall we have 3 or 4 bugs specific to XSAN, in addition to the generic remote file sharing bugs in MacOS, but I don't recall the details of every single bug in Apple's code.

The Photoshop code is not causing anything here - it is simply reporting the OS error to you.

The OS is causing the problem, Photoshop just passes along the message when the OS messes up.

If you really want to see this fixed, please let Apple know that you don't like all the unfixed bugs in their filesystem/fileserver code.

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New Here ,
Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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Hi Chris,

I have reported an issue here (above). I have given you steps to reproduce the issue so your engineers can verify what is going on on a deeper level then either me or you can do.

Your honesty in simply blaming this issue on Apple's filesystem and/or "bugs in MacOS" is exactly the kind of response I was afraid I would get from you all along. First of all the issue I described is in regards to Xsan which is a StorNext based file system. Working on that causes dataloss for your photoshop customers. It is not even Apple's filesystem.

If the Xsan volume is *re-shared" over AFP we get other error messages (preventing save and therefore dataloss). Since those error messages are mentioned in this forum I posted the issue here.

Please just answer this:

If you took the time to test this (you need equpment for 10-20k USD for the Xsan setup, but I am sure you have a lab at your disposal) you can verify this issue as I have reported it. Do you understand that, from a customer point of view, whatever way you are saving from Photoshop that is running into whatever issue (Apple's or Adobes) could benefit from being changed to the way saving works in the other applications where saving does not cause any issues?

As you customer I do not care if it is an Apple bug causing the issue if you have the option to bypass the bug by fixing your software. Do you see where I am coming from?

(And by that I mean implement the same saving as in for example AE into PS)

"If you really want to see this fixed, please let Apple know that you don't like all the unfixed bugs in their filesystem/fileserver code."

I know that you want me to go to Apple with this, but I don't want them to change anything, they can't fix Photoshop for me, Adobe can. I want Adobe to change their code so that Photoshop saves like their other software does. Or at least take an issue with dataloss serious enough to attempt to reproduce the issue in-house and issue a statement to their customers.

I will give you an analogy:

If Photoshop is a car.

I have problems driving the car on a specific road.

You are telling me to go to the public transport office to have them fix the road.

But I am asking you to consider modifying the car so it can drive on the specific road (which your other cars already can).

Maybe I am not having the right expectations here. Is there another way for me to file a bug with you guys. Do you have a support team? Do they attempt to replicate issues and escalate them to your engineers? If so please let me know of that resource so I can help get this report to the right people...

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Apr 24, 2013 Apr 24, 2013

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We are identifying the bugs as being in MacOS because we have tested and found that the bugs are in MacOS, and because Apple has tested and identified the bugs in MacOS.

AGAIN: we are working around as many of the MacOS filesystem and fileserver bugs as we can.

We cannot fix Apple's bugs, we cannot fix third party fileserver bugs - but we are going out of our way to work around as many as possible.

This is not about fixing Photoshop - this is about parts of the OS (and sometimes fileserver code) not working correctly.

AND AGAIN: we are working around as many of the MacOS filesystem and fileserver bugs as we can.

Also, please take some time to read the credits on Photoshop.

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New Here ,
Apr 25, 2013 Apr 25, 2013

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Hi Chris,

I checked your CV already. I know that you are influential.

I already have raised this issue with Apple. The funny thing with raising issues with them is that, as an end customer, you get a reference number, you give the steps to reproduce and you feel taken cared of.

Or you file it as a bug so it goes directly to their engineering.

None of that means the issue will be fixed anytime soon of course, maybe Adobe has a closer releationship and can get engineering resources allocated for major issues like this though.

Raising an issue here with you I get the feeling that: you don't appreciate the issue being raised. You don't indicate you can attempt to replicate the issue. You don't give any indication you understand the severity of the issue. Instead of considering workarounds or thanking for feedback and log it as an enhancement request for the developer team, you simply write of this as "just another filessystem/OS bug we can't do anything about".

Maybe I have miss-read your replies. I understand your frustration about bugs outside of your controll. (But as I have repeatedly pointed out you could consider workaround this by changing your way of saving in Photoshop to me more like in your other apps.)

As creatives we are totally depending on your software products, so please don't turn into another Quark in regards to staying on top of your game, fixing issues and treating customers.

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Apr 25, 2013 Apr 25, 2013

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I am a senior engineer, and I tend to take care of the cases directly.

That's why you have gotten detailed replies instead of a case number and a brushoff.

How many times do I have to say that we have investigated these issues?

How many times do I have to say that we have found these issues to be due to bugs in MacOS code?

How many times do I have to say that Apple is fixing some of these bugs?

How many times do I have to say that we are working around as many of the Apple bugs as we can?

Are you not reading anything that I write?

AGAIN: Changing the way Photoshop saves to match other appplications would only accomplish one thing: you would lose more files without knowing about it.  The OS bugs would still be there, you just wouldn't get the error notification when the OS hosed your files.

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Adobe Employee ,
Apr 25, 2013 Apr 25, 2013

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Hi Simon,

Can you send me an email to jsass [at] adobe.com? I would like to get some more specific information around your server setup vs. what we have here in house.

Thanks,

Jeff Sass - Adobe Photoshop

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New Here ,
Apr 26, 2013 Apr 26, 2013

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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).

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Adobe Employee ,
Apr 26, 2013 Apr 26, 2013

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Hi Simon,

I have filed Adobe Photoshop bug 3550643 for this issue. I will continue to work with you offline on this and if we find a solution we can report back to this thread.

Thanks,

Jeff

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Apr 26, 2013 Apr 26, 2013

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Only Apple can really fix the underlying problems (or possibly the vendors behind XSan in your case).

But we are trying to work around as many of the issues as possible - not by failing to inform you of errors like other applications, but by checking for known problems and having fallback strategies (if that directory gives an error when it shouldn't, write somewhere else) or avoiding problematic APIs when necessary (if that server can't handle a certain operation (even if it is supposed to): then don't do that operation on that kind of server).

We really want network saving to work - we know it can when the OS, server and network are all working correctly.

But we've seen SO many issues with bad servers, bad networks, bad server administrators (Dilbert is an optimist), and unfortunately a lot of bugs in OS code (especially on MacOS)...

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New Here ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi forgive a newbie butting in - but I have just changed fom a PC to IMAC, installed my CS4 extended edition, everything working fabulously untill I try and save an image I have just spent three hours manipulating. I get the same message as everyone else here "write access was not granted". I googled the issue and stumbled onto here. Now I am not technical at all, I'm a photographer that just manipulates images. I have tried reading through the 8 pages here - but kinda glazed over by page three - not a lot made much sense. But the gist that I am getting is that I can't do anything about this issue, you guys haven't found out how to work around this and I'm stuck with a mac that I can't use CS4 on?

Is that about right?

Thanks Paula

P.S - There's no server - just me and my new mac (that I would actually like to throw out the window at this moment in time!!)

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Contributor ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi Paula,

A workaround is just saving as a different name. Just add a 1 or something at the end of the file name and save it and your work won't be wasted. Weird that this is happening on a local drive thou, I haven't seen this happen before.

Andre

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New Here ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi Andrea - thanks for the reply but I'd already tried that and nothing works. The only place it is letting me save anything to is a dropbox file - which will do for now but is a complete pain in the backside and adding loads of time to processing that I don't have and I have had to extend my dropbox space allowance so it's already cost me money!

Thanks

Paula

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Engaged ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Where is the file being saved to? On the same partition as the OS and Photoshop, or a separate partition?

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New Here ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Sorry Kurt I don't know even what that means (sorry I did say I wasn't technical!) I am trying to save to a Toshiba external hard drive. I can use it in any other application on the mac and I use it on my home PC all the time. But I can not save from PS at all.

Thanks Paula

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Engaged ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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I am trying to save to a Toshiba external hard drive.

Actually, that's just the kind of info I was looking for.

OS X is built on top of UNIX, which is a permissions based OS. On the desktop, click on the icon of your external drive once to highlight it. Then press Command+I (or choose Get Info from the menu bar). You will see this (the name of the drive will of course be different):

Screen shot 2013-05-01 at 9.06.48 AM.png

If necessary, click on the arrow next to Sharing & Permissions so it looks like the image above. Click on the lock at the lower right. Your admin password box will appear. Type in your password and click OK. Now turn on the check box next to Ignore ownership on this volume. Close the Get Info box.

That's it. Now nothing on that drive is considered "owned". You won't see any more such messages about "write access was not granted".

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New Here ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi Kurt - well this is sounding promising BUT I don't have a padlock!! (I want a padlock!!) Here's what I get when I click the little arrow next to "sharing and permissions"

Screen Shot 2013-05-01 at 15.16.34.png Thanks for helping - it's very good of you, Paula

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Contributor ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi Paula,

Your drive is formatted as a NTFS drive (which is a file format that only Windows can read), that's why you're not being able to save to it. If you format it in pretty much any other file system existent you'll be able to save it normally. In the meantime, you can save the file on your desktop so that you don't have to use your Dropbox.

Andre

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Engaged ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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"You can only read" says it all. That's why you can't write anything to the drive.

The problem is it's formatted as NTFS (a Windows format). OS X can only read NTFS drives by default. There's a few things you can do to get around it.

The first issue is; does the drive need to be in NTFS format anymore? That is, do you still share it with a Windows computer? If not, then there's no need for the drive to be NTFS. If that's the case, do this:

1) Make a new folder on the OS X drive. Copy everything from the external drive to the new folder.

2) Use Disk Utility to erase the external drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

3) Copy everything back to the newly Mac formatted drive.

4) Now use the instructions above to ignore permissions on the external drive.

If the drive must remain NTFS format for some reason, then you need to add third party software to OS X so it can write to an NTFS drive. Paragon NTFS is an excellent choice.

If you need to share the drive between Windows and OS X, but don't want to use such third party software, then reformat the drive as exFAT. OS X's Disk Utility can do that, but it doesn't always work well to do it from there. Take the drive back to a Windows computer. Copy all data off to another drive in Windows. Reformat the drive as exFAT, and then copy all data back. OS X can read and write exFAT without the need for any extra software.

Best choice though is to reformat the drive for the Mac, assuming you have no need to share it any further with a Windows computer.

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New Here ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Thanks Andre - I assume to format it I would lose the 11,000 photos on there? I need a new one soon anyway - can I format a new one so it wrks on both PC amd Mac?

Thanks again

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Contributor ,
May 01, 2013 May 01, 2013

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Hi Paula,

You can do as Kurt suggested and copy everything to your Mac drive, format t and copy everything back, but if you need a new one anyway, you could leave this one as is and get a new one and format the new one for both Mac and Windows (following the steps that Kurt mentioned on his response).

Hope this helps!

Andre

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