Error 5: access is denied

Greetings all :slight_smile:

I am an Eagle user that is trying to switch to KiCad.

I have KiCad “5.6.1-1 release build” installed on a Windows 10 Pro system.

When I try to create a new project (PIC2550-UNO for example), I recieve the following error messages.

Changes won’t be saved to avoid overwriting the existing file “C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO.pro”
Details <<
4:53:31 PM: can’t open file ‘C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro’ (error 5: access is denied.)
4:53:31 PM: can’t open user configuration file ‘C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro’.
4:53:31 PM: Changes won’t be saved to avoid overwriting the existing file “C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro”
4:53:31 PM: can’t open file ‘C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro’ (error 5: access is denied.)
4:53:31 PM: can’t open user configuration file ‘C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro’.
4:53:31 PM: Changes won’t be saved to avoid overwriting the existing file"C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO\PIC2550-UNO.pro"

KiCad does create a subdirectory “C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO”.
It also creates three files in that subdirectory “PIC2550-UNO.kicad_pcb”, “PIC2550-UNO.pro” and “PIC2550-UNO.sch”.

The new project shows up on the KiCad project page.
When I try to open the schematic file, I get a warning that the schematic file does not exist and do I want to create it. I click on YES and receive the error as follows:

Changes won’t be saved to avoid overwriting the existing file “C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects\PIC2550-UNO.pro”
The expanded details show similar errors, reported when creating the project, for each of the files KiCad trys to open.

I have tried starting KiCad as regular user and as Adminitrator with the same results.

Any/all help would be appreciated.

Have a great day.

Did you at some point start the project as administrator? As I understand it W10 enforces permissions and you can’t access files created by another user. Try deleting the workspace and then only run Kicad as yourself.

I started KiCad as regular user.
I tried to create project.
I tried to open project that KiCad created and received access denied error message.

I then tried starting KiCad as Administrator.
When I tried to open the project, I received the same access denied errors.

Sorry, this is beyond my knowledge. I only noted from stories of others that W10 is more enforcing than previous Windows versions wrt permissions. Have you tried some of the suggestions thrown up by an Internet search? For example this one suggests that you need to install as administrator but run as user.

Pretty much the same story as with Linux for a long time now.

Are you logged in as Owner or changed an actual user name to Owner ?

This has an extra space between “O” and “wner”.
At first I thought it was a simple typo, but it occurs twice in the paths you posted and I thought it may be significant enough to post.

[paulvdh] Sorry about the extra space typo.

[davidsrsb] I am logged in as user name “Owner”.

[kenyapcomau] I tried uninstalling KiCad and reinstalling as Administrator.
I then started KiCad as regular user and still receive the same error messages.

Where does KiCad store the read/write permissions?

I do not have these access errors when I use EAGLE which is installed on the same PC.

It doesn’t. That is the job of the operating system.


As a first test try to make a project with a completely different name somewhere directly in your documents folder. If that does work then something is strange with the path you want to use now (could be access rights but could also be some strange characters in the path that create problems between KiCad and Windows or it could be that some other program is blocking a file there like an old crashed KiCad instance or a virus scanner.)

It may be useful to explain what you do step by step, basically so that anyone could try that without thinking or interpreting, just by following your steps. Tell exactly what menu items, buttons etc. you use, quoting texts verbatim without translation or interpretation. Or record a screencast and attach it here.

DId you however remove the workspace directory (C:\Users\Owner\Documents\KiCad projects) and everything under it before you ran KiCad as yourself? This may have been created in a previous run and belong to the administrator.

Search on the Internet on how to view the properties of folders and files. Check every folder on the path starting from C:\Users\Owner\Documents downwards to see if they are all owned by Owner.

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