Read only that will not un-read only

[RexRed]

Read only that will not un-read only

The day before yesterday I got a brilliant idea (so I thought). I noticed when I right clicked on the folder in Windows 11

that I have about 100 current work in progress Cakewalk songs in the folder, there was an icon to add this folder to Google Drive. 

I recalled that I was paying money to Google drive for some added space and so I thought I would add my songs to Google drive.

At the time I had them being backed up with Icloud so I moved them to another drive and right clicked on the WIP folder and they slowly got added to Google Drive.

After that I noticed Cakewalk hiccupping a lot and I thought instead I would move them from the slower drive to a solid state drive I have.

So I selected them all and moved them out of the Google Drive folder to the solid state drive I have. I went online and deleted them from Google Drive.

Now they all have read only status that won't go away no matter what I do.

I went on YouTube and looked up the myriad of ways to turn off read only and nothing whatsoever will take that state off. And I was thorough.

So I am stuck loading them with Cakewalk and saving them with a new filename in a new folder. 

I am unsure whether to blame Apple's Icloud or Google drive but something thinks these files belong to them and won't let them become un-read only.

I don't think I have experienced something so horrible in a very long time.

My songs are locked away in some read only state and I am the one locked out. Yes I can save them manually but I have many versions I keep of songs and they are all read only as well and some of these songs have vsts that don't seem to register, and Cakewalk just crashes while opening on some and I have to load in safe mode and turn off/omit Izotope plugins and then re-add them and guess where my settings were.

What a mess! These cloud services have proprietary locks that don't unlock even for the files on your hard drive. 

I would like to blame Apple because they are the most proprietary but Google has their Android world that can equally lock things up.

And I am sure Windows has their hand in this as well. I have watched many YouTube videos that give long procedures to get read only to turn off and "nothing" will remove this from my songs other than having Cakewalk save them one by one into an entirely new respective folder. I just thought I would warn you all and see if any of you have had the fun (cynical) I have had with this terrible experience.

These cloud services have decided to limitedly share my files with "me".

Fixing this and messing with "permissions" could, well, easily lock me completely out of my hard drive if I am not careful.

Edited August 7 by RexRed

[Kurre]

I've had read only problems. But only with a couple of windows dll's.

I fixed it by going to security tab and change ownership of the file. In my case it was the Operating System that had ownership. Changed it to administrator and the options of write etc turned up.

It seems logical that a cloud storage service would make the files read only. But it should change back the permissions when moved to the local pc. In this case they where moved to another cloud storage and when then moved to a local pc the last permissions where read only from icloud.

Hope the ownership solution works for you.

[Starship Krupa]

18 hours ago, RexRed said:

Now they all have read only status that won't go away no matter what I do.

Curious, have you tried running Sonar with Administrator privileges?

[Glenn Stanton]

@RexRed

if you have all your project content in a folder (like Cakewalk Projects or whatever you chose to keep your stuff organized in):

1. right-click on the top parent folder and select properties
2. select the security tab
3. select "to change permissions, click Edit" edit button
4. select "Users (devicename\Users)"
5. check the "full control" and "modify" checkboxes (this will give users of which you're one full control over the project folders and subfolders)

6. press "Apply"
if there is an option to apply permissions to all the folders, subfolders, files etc make sure it is checked and OK.
7. go grab a beverage as it may take a while to process...

8. reopen the folder properties and if read-only is enabled, then uncheck the read-only attribute, select "apply changes to this folder, subfolders, and files" and press OK

9. go grab a beverage while the read-only is removed...

NOTE: this will not hurt your content and project files HOWEVER if you also have applications run from the same folder, then the permissions could adversely affect those (most times no, but sometimes developers do weird things) - so make sure this is only the content and project files folders and not the applications.

NOTE: all this could be for moot if somehow you have a disk dedicated for your content and projects (like i do) and the inherit permissions is set to on (default), and you're restricted at the disk drive level. in which case i would apply the user permissions to the entire drive (which is what i did) to avoid anything at the top of the drive restricting you.

 

 

[RexRed]

On 8/7/2024 at 6:33 PM, Glenn Stanton said:

@RexRed

if you have all your project content in a folder (like Cakewalk Projects or whatever you chose to keep your stuff organized in):

1. right-click on the top parent folder and select properties
2. select the security tab
3. select "to change permissions, click Edit" edit button
4. select "Users (devicename\Users)"
5. check the "full control" and "modify" checkboxes (this will give users of which you're one full control over the project folders and subfolders)

6. press "Apply"
if there is an option to apply permissions to all the folders, subfolders, files etc make sure it is checked and OK.
7. go grab a beverage as it may take a while to process...

8. reopen the folder properties and if read-only is enabled, then uncheck the read-only attribute, select "apply changes to this folder, subfolders, and files" and press OK

9. go grab a beverage while the read-only is removed...

NOTE: this will not hurt your content and project files HOWEVER if you also have applications run from the same folder, then the permissions could adversely affect those (most times no, but sometimes developers do weird things) - so make sure this is only the content and project files folders and not the applications.

NOTE: all this could be for moot if somehow you have a disk dedicated for your content and projects (like i do) and the inherit permissions is set to on (default), and you're restricted at the disk drive level. in which case i would apply the user permissions to the entire drive (which is what i did) to avoid anything at the top of the drive restricting you.

 

 

I have done that 100 times and it does not work.

I have gone in and turned off Defender and I have tried about ten other things Youtubers suggested and still Windows will not let me save in the folder. 

It is very odd. The folder has the read only check and nothing I do will remove it.

None of the files in the folder (nor any hidden files) have read only attributes.

What is even more strange is Windows will let Cakewalk save over a file but it will not let me save a file with a new name in the folder.

I have to save the project into a completely new folder while importing audio to that folder and then I can save new projects with new filenames in the new folder. 

I cannot copy the files out of the folder into a new folder or the problem comes with them.

I cannot copy teh folder to another drive or place as the read only problem comes with the new folder and files.

This problem exists with about 20 or so of my song folders.

 

[RexRed]

On 8/7/2024 at 5:17 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Curious, have you tried running Sonar with Administrator privileges?

Yes, great suggestion but that did not work either, same exact issue.

The only solution so far is to have Cakewalk save the project as a new name and import audio into a new folder.

Then the issue is gone (so it seems).

I don't like this "solution" because I am quite certain that audio gets truncated beyond its visible boundaries.  

Edited August 16 by RexRed

[Glenn Stanton]

the other thing to check is owner - the owner should be able to do anything to the folder unless it's owned by the system. so in the security properties you need to get to a lower level - under the advanced settings - you'll see the owner setting:

click on change and add your account.

then go to the effective access tab and lookup the access rights for your account:

if after this change you still cannot remove the read-only - you may have some other system level issue or some policy setting set on a machine you are not the admin of...

Edited August 16 by Glenn Stanton