EPERM issue on MacOS

Basement
1

Desperate for developer help – I posted previously and still no resolution - people say it is a permissions thing but I have given the application full disk access - not sure what is wrong. I have disabled sync and it still gives same error

I continue to be locked out of Obsidian - I can open my vaults, but nothing will save because of this error: EPERM: operation not permitted

system info : MacOS Monterey 12.0.1

as soon as I start to type it pops up on screen as well as in sync activity
copying from the sync activity pane:

2021-11-18 06:19 - Connecting to server
2021-11-18 06:19 - Server pushed [MacBook-Pro-2.local] 000 Home Base.md
2021-11-18 06:19 - Server pushed [iPhone] After 2 AM.md
2021-11-18 06:19 - Downloading file Deep Questions podcast.md
2021-11-18 06:19 - EPERM: operation not permitted, open ‘/Users/drcasmithimac/Documents/Obsidian/mySecondBrain/Deep Questions podcast.md’ Deep Questions podcast.md
2021-11-18 06:19 - Downloading file Deep Questions podcast.md
2021-11-18 06:19 - EPERM: operation not permitted, open ‘/Users/drcasmithimac/Documents/Obsidian/mySecondBrain/Deep Questions podcast.md’ Deep Questions podcast.md

Things I have tried

i have tried everything! Fresh install ; full disk access etc - nothing works

2

I am not sure, but I think it isn’t advisable to use both iCloud and Obsidian Sync together. And ~/Documents is in iCloud (at least by default, as far as I know.)

Maybe try storing your vault outside of an iCloud-synced folder.

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Thanks i dont have iCloud files backing up for all of documents and I did try saving the vault in locations that are definitely not iCloud linked and its anywhere on my hard drive now wont save /sync

4

As far as I know, “full disk access” would grant access to the filesystem, but folder permissions could still override that.

Can you please give more information about the other locations? What is the other non-iCloud path that you are trying to use? (Hide your username if required.)

Can you show a screenshot of the permissions of that folder in the info window when you hit Cmd-i? (Or terminal or whatever method you like.)

Do you have any antivirus/firewall apps installed?

That’s all I can think of at the moment. And I’m not on Monterey yet, so I can’t test that.

1 Like
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If you dare to use a terminal window, try this:
chmod -R 777 /Users/drcasmithimac/Documents/Obsidian/

Don’t know if it helps, but then you at least have read-write permissions for for any process/user.

Disk Utility also tries to fix known permission issues and set back the right flags, that might clean up the home Documents folder permissions.

Also check Preferences-Security-And-Privacy-Files and Folders and make sure Obsidian is there, if not add it in.

7

ok @ksandvik you are my hero

the problem has been solved and I am posting the solution here so others might find it in the future

Taking @ksandvik’s advice i went to terminal and pasted the command above – immediately my bitdefender program issued a warning about “protected folders” – this startled me because I thought i disabled the antivirus – and when i checked in the menu bar it did say it was “OFF” but apparently NOT!

So I canceled the terminal command and instead uninstalled Bitdefender entirely – voila – the program works again and will sync and save

lesson - even if you think you turned antivirus off, it still is working for some things.

Now I have to figure out how to install it again and make sure Obsidian has access

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