I’m not a Windows user so take this with a bowl of salt. A quick search showed many other people are asking why their folder is read-only, for example here:
One pertinent reply said that with file explorer if you see a filled square next to read-only, it means nothing, it just indicates it’s a toggle. Only if you see a check mark, it’s read-only. Are you interpreting a filled square as read-only?
Maybe you should ask on a Windows forum what’s happening. But if I were you I’d concentrate on why your Thruhoal library doesn’t expand. Have you tried removing it and recreating it like jmk and I suggested?
All of my personal libraries appear to be “read only” in Win Explorer: See this context menu screen grab:
I assume this is normal. (??)
I have copied the contents of the library to a new library folder using Win Explorer. I have deleted the previous troublesome folder using both Win Explorer and “Manage Footprint Libraries.”
I can now open the new folder in Footprint Editor. But the old (now phantom and non-existent) folder still appears in footprint editor. However of course I cannot open it. I do not know what controls this?
Did you see in my .gif where (up at the top, at the end of the video) it says that the footprint is read only? What controls that? Some of the Devs must know what controls this?
Remove the obsolete entry in the footprint libraries table from Preferences > Manage Footprint Libraries Not just untick it, select it and click on the trash can.
I don’t think this is normal.
Your personal libraries were placed in a read/write area on your computer so you could modify them, add, delete, modify etc. Now you are not able to do so.
It seems that Windows has changed the permissions of the location where your personal libraries are stored. Using your operating system, check to see if windows allows read/write to your library folders.
And I was able to save it in footprint editor. I like to save my garbage for a “rainy day”… So I do not know what that “Read only” indication in Win Explorer means. But when I see “read only” in footprint editor that disallows me from normal footprint editing.
This is just my impression, but from glancing at a few posts on this topic from searches, this seems to be what’s happened:
Separate from permissions, Microsoft started repurposing this read-only flag for folders to mean this is a special area you shouldn’t be modifying. However enforcement is is left to the applications. Notepad apparently doesn’t care, but it seems Win Exploder and KiCad do.
Now Bob has put his libraries at the top level of the C: drive and this seems to be a special area. I think the best thing to do is to move all the personal libraries into the user area and just stay clear of all the Wins***.
I put 90% of what I create in C:\Bob Data. (Spreadsheets, Word Documents, etc,) My KiCad library folders are also there. All of my KiCad work is there in other sub-folders. I just checked a few other folders there unrelated to KiCad. Apparently it is all labeled “read only” by Windows. Makes no sense to me.
It is not a special area.
That ONE footprint subfolder (Bobs Semiconductor Thruhoal) was the only one which KiCad treated as “read only”.
That folder is now gone. The questions now are:
Why is footprint editor still looking for that “…pretty - Copy” folder? It does not exist. Perhaps it existed briefly by mistake.
Why does that deleted folder still show up in footprint editor? (I fully deleted it. My “recycle bin” is empty.) I cannot open this phantom folder. It does not appear in “manage footprint libraries”.
Well “read only” appears to be the default. I cannot find any folder that I use which is marked differently.
It seems oblivious to me that this cannot be the deciding factor for KiCad footprint editor.
If everyone in your class is named Dave, but your spouse picks out one of them and says she does not like him because his name is Dave (but all of the other Daves are OK) there must be something else going on.
I do not know what is?
So long as she does not like any of the others too much…
SPEAKING OF SPOUSE: I just checked my wife’s Win11 computer. It is the same…even the “Documents” folder.
If you’re not the original user that would explain it.
You wouldn’t “own” it.
These might help. It basically sounds like you don’t have the relevant permissions to the folders.
Naturally, Microsoft have been making these things both tighter, AND more obscure over the years.
I am the original owner of this laptop and I am the Admin for this laptop. Nothing shady there, other than maybe me.
It is getting late here now. I will study your link more carefully tomorrow. I think I have both the relevant and the irrelevant permissions. At least…I am certainly able to edit in all of these other folders. It was only with this one folder and with KiCad…
I think I probably originally copied this folder from the standard libraries into my own custom libraries (as a starting point for editing) and some sort of write permission (the lack thereof) travelled with it. But where it was in my custom library folder, using Win Explorer, I could not see any permission difference. Today I deleted that subfolder after copying the contents to another one which now works OK. I guess maybe KiCad thinks it must still be there because it thinks I did have permission to delete it.
Where does KiCad keep track of that?
Anyway I will dive further into the Win links on Friday.
I now have half of an idea…running KiCad as administrator. But the only place I see the phantom folder is in footprint editor, and I see no way to even TRY to delete it there.
Right. So when you copy an ntfs folder, it also copies the file permissions.
Copy a read only file belonging to only Susie, and the copy keeps that.
Kicad doesn’t manage this, Windows does and it’s behaved the same since NT3.x
What has changed is that now Windows uses a special user to install programs and restrict those programs to only their files. I believe programs also have special users/groups these days.
This has helped reduce malware infections and impacts.
So IF you copied the original kicad read only folder, the new one will have all the same permissions or lack as the original. Kicad’s originals are read only, and/or only modifyable by the “kicad program user/group” so that goes a way to explaining it.
I went through this process with my KiCad folder (containing my libraries for example) but it REALLY seems too long/complicated/dangerous/over my head. It tells me to repeat but I did not.
I do not know what I am doing when I do it.
And after that is done, I still cannot change that status from “read only”…
I hope that I did not screw anything up.
EDIT:
Just now I did that. Cannot find the phantom. AND…
Now I opened KiCad and those two issues seem to be gone!
But I still do not understand the “read only” status.
Earlier today I opened project A and saw no issue when I opened the footprint editor.
Just now I opened project B and again the footprint editor looked for that “…copy” footprint library.
AHA! Sure enough, project B calls out a footprint from a library which I have now deleted/renamed. So I re-assigned the same footprint from the new library name. Now the issue seems to be gone again.
THAT is probably what happened above…simply opening a different project.
(gotta figure out what that means…)
