Linux file permissions issue

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

I have a designated folder for DAW projects, but Ardour cannot initialize new files in that dir (it does -rw------- apparently).

It can however initialize new files under $HOME/Documents/Ardour

Both top level folders have drwx------ so I cannot figure out what’s the difference.

The DAW media folder is on an external SSD (where the whole system is too, including $HOME)

Ardour also has no issues creating new projects, and such, but creating new media files, interchange, etc. for the desired path is a problem.

Here’s the log dump from the program

2025-04-16T11:00:34 [INFO]: Loading user ui scripts file /home/$USER/.config/ardour8/ui_scripts
2025-04-16T11:00:34 [INFO]: Loading plugin order file /home/$USER/.config/ardour8/plugin_metadata/plugin_order
2025-04-16T11:00:35 [INFO]: Loading history from /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0:0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT/$PROJECT.history
2025-04-16T11:00:35 [INFO]: $PROJECT: no history file "/mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0:0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT/$PROJECT.history" for this session.
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: cannot open directory /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles (No such file or directory)
recorder:MIDI 1:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 2:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 3:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 1:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 2:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 3:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [ERROR]: cannot open directory /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles (No such file or directory)
cannot open directory 0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT2/interchange/$PROJECT2/audiofiles (No such file or directory)
Cannot create Session directory at path /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles Error: Permission denied
2025-04-16T11:01:07 [WARNING]: Falling back to Reasonable Synth for Midi Audition
2025-04-16T11:01:09 [INFO]: Loading user ui scripts file /home/$USER/.config/ardour8/ui_scripts
2025-04-16T11:01:09 [INFO]: Loading plugin order file /home/$USER/.config/ardour8/plugin_metadata/plugin_order
2025-04-16T11:01:09 [INFO]: Loading history from /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0:0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT2/$PROJECT2.history
2025-04-16T11:01:09 [INFO]: $PROJECT2: no history file "/mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0:0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT2/$PROJECT2.history" for this session.
2025-04-16T11:06:40 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:06:40 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 2:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:06:40 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 3:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:06:40 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:06:40 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 1:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:05 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 1:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:05 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 2:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 3:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 1:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 2:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 3:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: recorder:MIDI 4:0 new capture file not initialized correctly
2025-04-16T11:07:06 [ERROR]: cannot open directory /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles (No such file or directory)
cannot open directory 0-part5/Ardour/$PROJECT3/interchange/$PROJECT3/audiofiles (No such file or directory)
Cannot create Session directory at path /mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles Error: Permission denied

Is there any way to solve this?

#2

Are you sure your paths are correct and the way they’re supposed to be?
/mnt/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/interchange/usb-Verbatim_Portable_SSD_WN6L12448000-0/audiofiles (No such file or directory) indicates that the audiofile folder doesn’t exist.

I’m also not entirely sure it’s entirely safe having “$” in a project name.
$WHATEVER is usually considered to be a variable in Linux so if Ardour happens to do variable expansion and you happen to have the variable $PROJECT set it would expand to that name.

1 Like
#3

I’ve hidden some parts of the path myself with the $xxx things.

And you’re right - Ardour, despite having a project folder set, seems to be trying to create files at the root of the mountpoint…

#4

This seems dubious to me:

but later:

This paths in the latter statements look very different and garbled to me. I’d try to mount that ssd under a reasonable short name without colons etc.

2 Likes
#5

FIXED

The partition on the SSD where I want to keep media projects ends with
:0-part5.

I don’t know who came up with that naming scheme, but it seems to be the culprit here.

I believe that’s why Ardour tries to add interchange project files to mount point root (which is not as permissive).

To make things more confusing, the 0-part5 folder appears like that in my $HOME.

Inside it, there are projects there are couple of projects that also appear in the full path to the mounted partition, but only a subset.

#6

What distro is this, and how did you mount that usb drive? It seems very uncommon to me to end up with such a mountpoint name, but I’m not really an expert in this area. But I think most modern distros automount usb drives below /media, using UUID or volume name.

#7

I think that is the mount point, which is different than the partition name on the device.
You could try unmounting the partition, and mounting at a different name.

1 Like
#8

Since then I changed the mountpoint, but this is the disk

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Fedora 40, mix of btrfs and ext4

#9

Did that solve the error?

#10

Yes, it did. But given all the disk / partition ID options, it might get confusing, i.e. I trust my distro to give me disk ID options that won’t break software. But in this case, I think something is awry with respect to btrfs and all that…