The file could not be opened because the volume is Read Only

[ItzMeDave]

Hello,

 

I am new here... I just bought a new iMac last week and finally decided to give Affinity a try as my primary photo editing tool.  I just downloaded it and when I tried to open my first image to edit from my external hard drive I get an error saying that 'The file could not be opened because the volume is Read Only'.  I never had an issue with opening files from this drive on my old Windows machine via Photoshop.  Is there anything I can do to resolve this?  I have thousands of images on this drive just waiting to be loved.  Thanks in advance for any help that may come my way!

 

Dave

[Ben]

Are you using Mac or Windows version?  Is this a USB drive?

[ItzMeDave]

I am using the MAC version on my new iMac.  No longer using Windows computer.  The drive is a 2TB external USB hard drive.

[Uuiop]

Try this: click to select your external drive icon, then press Cmd - i together. The 'Get Info' window should open. Down at the bottom look for 'Sharing and Permissions'. If neither 'me' nor 'admin' appear, click the padlock to allow access, then click on the + icon. Select yourself and / or Admin to add to the list. Now use the up-down arrows to select 'Read and Write'. Close the Get Info window (it locks automatically) and you should be fine. Note that the Get Info window is also accessible from the Finder top Menu Bar > File menu.

[ItzMeDave]

Uuiop... thank you for that info. When I open the Sharing & Permission it simply says 'You can only read' below it. There is no lock or any other option there. Still stuck... thanks for trying!

[R C-R]

When I open the Sharing & Permission it simply says 'You can only read' below it. There is no lock or any other option there.

Are you sure there is nothing like this?

 

 

EDIT: Also, you said you used the drive with your old Windows machine, so it is possible it is formatted as NTFS. If so, Macs can natively read from NTFS formatted drives but not write to them.

[ItzMeDave]

Thanks R C-R!  Yeah, it doesn't look at all like the image you provided.  Your second point is probably the issue then.  Funny I am able to pull video into iMovie from that drive without a problem, but can't do photos into Affinity. 

[R C-R]

Thanks R C-R!  Yeah, it doesn't look at all like the image you provided.  Your second point is probably the issue then.  Funny I am able to pull video into iMovie from that drive without a problem, but can't do photos into Affinity. 

To be honest, I am not sure why Affinity would object to opening a file from a read only volume -- that should only be an issue if or when the app tries to write something back to that volume, like saving changes made to it. At that point, the "Save as" option would allow you to save to volume with read/write access, so this seems like an unnecessary restriction.

 

Maybe one of the staff can shed some more light on this, now that we know which OS you are using.

[Alfred]

Macs can natively read from NTFS formatted drives but not write to them.

 

You would obviously need to save the edited file to another location, but I don't see why this should prevent you from opening the original file. :huh:

[R C-R]

 You would obviously need to save an edited file to another location, but I don't see why this should prevent you from opening the original file. :huh:

As you can see from my last post, great minds think alike ... & so do ours.  :lol:

[ItzMeDave]

Thanks to all!  I moved all my files to the iMac hard drive and I am now able to open them.  I will reformat my external drive to be compatible with the iMac.  Thanks again!

[R C-R]

ItzMeDave,

 

I am glad you sorted out this issue but I still wonder why Affinity balks at opening a file from a read only volume. Perhaps one of the staff can comment on this?

 

Ben, are you still following this topic?

[pankajdubey]

Simple solution.

Move the lock tab midway between open and close positions or if you are the one with a caliper then mid of the lock be at 1 cm from the top and you will have custom access tot card and Affinity can open the files.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, pankajdubey said:

Simple solution.

Move the lock tab midway between open and close positions ...

The OP said it was a USB drive so there is no lock tab to move. Besides, the tab on an SD card just prevents it being written to, not read from.

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Besides, the tab on an SD card just prevents it being written to, not read from.

Correct. Which would make it read-only, which is what the error message was complaining about.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Correct. Which would make it read-only, which is what the error message was complaining about.

But there is no reason for that complaint, which is why its appearance in the Affinity makes no sense. I can pull the SD card from my camera, lock it, insert it into my Mac's card reader, navigate to a folder full of jpg files, & use Finder's "Open with ..." option to list all the dozen plus apps on my system that the macOS thinks should be able to open any of them, including Affinity Photo & Affinity Designer. All of them except the Affinity ones happily open the files without any complaints.

[walt.farrell]

I can't explain why Affinity wants to have a file it can write to, but the error message seems to indicate that (for some reason) it's a requirement.

[v_kyr]

I think the OPs problem is more file system related, if he reuses a disk from a previous Windows computer that one will be probably NTFS formated and his Mac as default only supports read access of NTFS file systems. It will also have been more a OSX/MacOS message here instead of a Affinity specific one, since the OS detects that it can't write to that disk without some further setup files system driver support for it.

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

I think the OPs problem is more file system related ...

That does not explain why I get the error message on my Mac only with the Affinity apps but not with (for example) Preview, the stand alone NIK apps, or any of my installed browsers. All of them open supported file types on my locked SD card without any complaints.

[v_kyr]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

That does not explain why I get the error message on my Mac only with the Affinity apps but not with (for example) Preview, the stand alone NIK apps, or any of my installed browsers. All of them open supported file types on my locked SD card without any complaints.

Is your SD card NTFS formated?

I recall that I got in the past similar messages as the OP when using an external NTFS formated USB drive, since then I didn't had any additional OSX NTFS driver for write support installed. And those days I didn't had any Affinity product at all installed or in use at all so far. But since it is so long ago I can not remember what I tried to open from the NTFS drive at all, aka with which program.

However, it's possible that Affinity products try to write something temporary to the locations they open files from, or that their file handling routines always also test for write access etc. The Mac dev team should be able to tell.

[pankajdubey]

12 hours ago, R C-R said:

The OP said it was a USB drive so there is no lock tab to move. Besides, the tab on an SD card just prevents it being written to, not read from.

Silly me, I was having the same problem with my SD CARD adapter and Affinity would not open it. When I moved the switch midway it gave me custom acce and Affinity was able to open the file on the SD card.

[HarryW]

I have been having the same problem with files on BluRay and DVD archive discs (Mac Mini, OS 10.12.6). I have to copy them to my hard drive to open them in Affinity Photo. Raw files will open with Photoshop, Preview, and oddly, files will open on the disc with Affinity Publisher. I suspect a bug in Affinity Photo.

[Alex Waston]

Well, if the file could not be opened because the volume is Read-Only then I recommend a free disk formatting utility-AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. By trying which you can reformat a read-only SD card or USB drive to FAT32, exFAT, NTFS or Ext2/3/4 in Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista free. Additionally, it provides you the efficient way to format as well as remove SD card or USB drive is read only error.