You don't have permission to modify..... Please gain the necessary permissions and retry

#1

I’m getting the Insync (v 3.2.1.40839) error:
You don’t have permission to modify [filename]. Please gain the necessary permissions and retry
on a bunch of files in my Google drive.

I’ve done a deep dive into the Windows permissions and there is nothing obviously odd. They are not flagged readonly, and the permission for all users is Allow Full control, and Allow all categories.

Also I opened a command prompt and overwrote one of the files complained about, just to satisfy myself that I have permission to overwrite this file.

I’ve tried hitting the Retry button in Insync, but the error just comes back.

#2

So sorry for the trouble! Please also send your logs to support@insynchq.com with the link to this post and include the following files in the folder:

  • logs.db
  • out.txt
  • data folder
  • live folder

If these are too big for an attachment, feel free to send us a link so we can download these.

#3

I’ve been looking into this further, and I’m getting this error on some map files that are open in a mapping application. These files haven’t changed in years, the modified date is years in the past, and the date and size are the same on drive.google.com as they are on my disk, and yet insync is complaining that it can’t modify them.

Is it possible that either (a) insync opens files for writing even before it has determined that they are changed and require writing? … or… is it possible that insync’s way of determining a file needs changing (writing) has some issue? (How does it determine that?)

#4

Interesting observation @xpusostomos. I’ll have this checked to see if it’s a, b, or something else entirely!

Could you let me know your current Insync version? Please also send the latest copy of your logs.db and out.txt files to support@insynchq.com with the link to this post. :slight_smile:

#5

Any hope of this ever getting fixed? Tired of seeing the “sync failed” icon in my system tray for 8 months now.

#6

Hi @xpusostomos, my apologies for the trouble you’ve been facing for many months. By any chance, were you able to get my email a few months back about unsyncing then resyncing the problematic files? If you’ve done those steps per my email, please do send the following to support@insynchq.com:

  • your latest logs.db and out.txt files
  • a screenshot of the errors in the Errors tab

I’ll raise these to our engineer’s attention once more so we can look into it further.

#7

Surely this is only a workaround, and you need to fix the code? And if I workaround it, how will you ever know if you’ve properly fixed the code?

#8

Hi @xpusostomos,

Currently, it is a potential workaround and we will need to fetch user logs before and after resyncing to investigate the issue further. Thank you!

#9

I already sent you all the logs and stuff. Never heard anything about it afterwards. It seems to me that these files, being linked from someone else’s google drive account are readonly, and insync isn’t smart enough to realise that and ignore them.

#10

Bump… the cause of this bug is clear and obvious… trying to sync files that are readonly and linked from someone else’s account. No excuse for not fixing this for like 9 months.

#11

Hi @xpusostomos,

After investigating this again, it seems like we cannot trace any indication in the logs how the local-to-cloud sync of the said files were triggered. Is it possible at all that another software may have triggered it?

When you suggested that Insync should not update a shared directory either locally or in the cloud (as a non-owner), this would only applicable when sharing with Can view permissions. In the case of Can organize, add, & edit, Insync should be able to update the shared directory.

#12

I don’t know what that means “another software may have triggered”… how would another software trigger it? In my imagination, Insync would be triggered by timestamps or something, and the Date Modified timestamps are years old. And there is no difference in the timestamp of the problematic files with the hundreds of files in the same directory. They may well be map files that I accessed in my mapping software… in fact they would certainly be, since the particular files in question are maps of areas I’m interested in, but… they weren’t modified, they are read only maps.

Yes sure, writable shared directories should be updatable… but this directory is not updatable. If I try in google drive to upload to that folder it says “You do not permission to upload to this folder”. You can try it yourself, this is a publicly shared google drive cache of maps: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XSAHAqSXN472R7GWXKxm1U9VUoWsR5vg?usp=sharing

#13

I don’t know what that means “another software may have triggered”… how would another software trigger it

What we mean by this is that sometimes, some other software could have performed the modifications of the files (possibly just the metadata) which may have prompted Insync to attempt to sync them.

Our engineers have been made aware of the issue wherein Insync tries to sync local changes to a shared file (w/ read permissions) to the cloud – it shouldn’t happen and we will be working on improving it. :slight_smile:

Insync not syncing, acting weird (KeePass directory)
#14

If there is some specific metadata you want me to check, I can check it. The modification times are ancient. The access times are also ancient (although I believe on Windows 10, updates to access times are disabled by default anyway). Not sure what other metadata there could be. Since Google seemingly only keeps the modification time as metadata, it wouldn’t seem to make much sense to check anything else. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#15

I’ll consult with our engineers to see if a specific metadata can or needs to be checked on your end! :slight_smile:

#16

Your development team doesn’t seem to have the necessary skills to resolve problems. How can it be, that I have failed sync messages for nearly a year now… I can press “Retry” a zillion times, and it doesn’t resolve it. The software has no robustness against recovering from errors. Why should anyone use this software? You’re not taking problems seriously, you’re not getting them resolved.

#17

I had to completely reinstall Windows 11 to get it to work, and resync Google drive from scratch. And STILL insync is giving me the BOGUS error that it can’t modify files that are not owned by my Google drive.

Oh how much longer must I suffer. This is nearly 18 months old now.

GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.

#18

Hi @xpusostomos,

Since it’s a clean re-install/re-sync, please do send me the latest logs.db and out.txt (to support@insynchq.com) so I can follow it up with our engineers.

#19

Only 2 years now living with this bug and see the little red incync icon failure symbol on all my machines.

Maybe after 5 years your engineers might get off their asses and fix this maybe?

#20

Hi @xpusostomos,

We understand your sentiments regarding this long-standing issue regarding the permission errors.

Our engineers already have a proposed solution, while we do not have this included in our current projects cycle yet (due to more pressing issues and bugs), I have lined this up to be revisited as soon as we can.

Thank you.