Saving problem

[MagBass]

I'm updating some old pieces with software resources (I no longer use any hardware synths).  I open a project in its original folder, say in Sonar 7, work on it, and then do a Save As, move to the CbB folder and save it there.  Either I do more work or leave and come back to it later and make more changes.  I click on Save and get the following:

The only thing I can do at this point is save under a slightly different name.  Does anyone have any idea what the sharing violation is or how to find it?

[James Argo]

What Windows (7,8,10) ? Have you tried running Cakewalk as administrator? Most case violation & restriction problem can be solved by running as administrator.

 

[MagBass]

Win 10.  I just tried admin, and got the same result.  I don't understand it; there's no audio in the project, so what sharing violation could there be?  This is even after closing CbB and reopening it.

Edited August 13, 2020 by MagBass

[bitflipper]

Windows version doesn't matter. Windows 95 would act the same way. What's happening is you're trying to overwrite a file that's already open for writing by another program, something Windows won't allow because doing so would compromise file system integrity.

Easiest way to avoid this with cwp files by making sure that only one instance of Cakewalk is open at a time, and that Cakewalk is configured to only have one project open at a time.

[MagBass]

Thanks. I'll check to see if I have something open twice by mistake.

[MagBass]

I've been working with this for a few days, with no luck.  I'm getting the sharing violation dialog even on projects I used to be able to save with no problem.  I just upgraded to the latest CbB and still get the error.  Is there an avenue for getting this to Cakewalk support?  (Is there any Cakewalk support anymore?)  The only way I can save right now is to do a Save As and change the name, but I have to do this every time.  It's quite a mess.

[Xoo]

Is D a network share or local drive?  If the former, have you rebooted the server?  If the latter, have you rebooted your PC?

[MagBass]

D is a local drive and I've just rebooted, with no success.

[msmcleod]

Some process has the file locked. 

The most common reason I've found for this is virus checkers/cloud sync programs (e.g. OneDrive). 

Make sure your Cakewalk project files (and your audio folders) are excluded from such programs. They will cause no end of issues if they lock files while Cakewalk is trying to access them.

[MagBass]

I stopped my Internet connection, turned off my virus protection, opened CbB, pulled up one of the projects, clicked Save.  Got the error.

This began out of nowhere some days ago.  Maybe it's a Microsoft update that's responsible...?  But there are a couple other (cosmetic) anomalies in CbB that just started happening also, so probably not.

I haven't tried SPlat or X3; I'll do that in a bit.  CbB is unusable like this.

[Xoo]

Try saving to a completely different location too (if you haven't already)?

[user 905133]

2 hours ago, MagBass said:

The only way I can save right now is to do a Save As and change the name, but I have to do this every time.  It's quite a mess.

Just wondering, are you saying here that if you save "MySong.cwp" as "MySong-rev1.cwp" in the new location, when you open "MySong-rev1.cwp" from the new location after rebooting and only opening CbB, you get the same error?

Edited August 18, 2020 by User 905133
if --> are

[bitflipper]

I have run into similar situations many times in the past, where Windows was insisting that a file was open even though I was sure I hadn't done it myself. On rare occasions, it was the O/S' mistake, but those always involved files on remote servers and required rebooting the server to resolve. However, the other 95% of the time it was a legit sharing violation involving some process/file association that I wasn't aware of. Every time, the tool I used to troubleshoot the issue was Process Explorer from sysinternals.com. Give it a shot.

 

[MagBass]

Thanks Bitflipper; I've been a Process Explorer user for years and have it running all the time on my computers, but I confess to not knowing how to use it to check out a sharing violation.  Would you mind explaining how I would do that?

[MagBass]

On 8/18/2020 at 8:32 AM, User 905133 said:

Just wondering, are you saying here that if you save "MySong.cwp" as "MySong-rev1.cwp" in the new location, when you open "MySong-rev1.cwp" from the new location after rebooting and only opening CbB, you get the same error?

Yes, that's what I'm saying.  But this only started happening maybe this weekend.  I never had this problem before and I hadn't changed anything in CbB until I updated two days ago, but the problem already existed by then.

[MagBass]

Thought I had it worked out, but I didn't.  The gremlin is back.  I tried all this in SPlat, BTW, with no problems so it seems to be a CbB thing.

Edited August 20, 2020 by MagBass

[David Roach]

I have also started to suffer with this problem, seemingly after updating to the latest iteration of Windows.

I'm going to keep experimenting and will report back if I find a fix.

[MagBass]

I was wondering if it could be a Microsoft critical update causing the problem. I haven't changed much of anything else on my system. I guess I should investigate rolling back an update or two (or get involved with Microsoft tech support).

At least I have a possible direction now. Haven't been able to use CbB for weeks now. Good luck to you and I hope we don't start getting lots of others having the same issue.

 

[MagBass]

On 8/18/2020 at 10:49 AM, bitflipper said:

However, the other 95% of the time it was a legit sharing violation involving some process/file association that I wasn't aware of. Every time, the tool I used to troubleshoot the issue was Process Explorer from sysinternals.com. Give it a shot.

Bitflipper, I was Googling around and found a thread somewhere that suggested using Process Monitor from Sysinternals.  Per your suggestion, I had tried Process Explorer, which is always running on my computer, but couldn't figure out how to get at a sharing violation.  So I tried Process Monitor, which allowed me to do an active capture of everything going on when I attempt to do a Save.

After a very long list of WriteFile operations, CbB finally comes to the point where it wants to rename the temporary file to the actual file name.  As you can see at the highlighted line, when it tries to create the real file name (isn't my original file with that name already sitting there?), the operation returns Privilege Not Held, then gets Sharing Violation on three successive attempts to create the file.  Seems to me CbB should be renaming my original file before trying to create a file with the same name, but I could be misunderstanding something.  I do not know what the problem is, but hoped you might.

If you or anyone else knows what's going on here, I'd appreciate your help.

 

[bitflipper]

I wasn't going to suggest Process Monitor, at least not until every other avenue of investigation had been explored. As you've discovered, diagnosing a problem via Process Monitor often requires some deep archaeological digging. Unfortunately, the log isn't revealing anything you didn't already know, namely that CW is unable to overwrite the CWP file due to a sharing violation.

There is another tool that's more explicit in identifying which process has a file open, but it's been years since I've used it and can't remember what it was called. I'll see if I can dig it up.

[EDIT] Ah, the tool I was thinking of is called Handle, another one written by Mark Russinovich. It lists all open file handles. This is a DOS command, so you'll need to write its output to a text file and then search the text file. Open a command prompt and type:

        Handle64 > junk.txt & notepad junk.txt

You can also use Handle to search for a specific file name, using the -u option:

        Handle64 -u {filename}