Refuses to copy files

I am moving some backup files to new hard drives.
Most files copy fine but many of them say "You don't have sufficient permission to..."
I have gone into Info and changed all permissions to "read and write" and I have "copied to enclosed items" but some of them still refuse to copy.
What can I do different?

The exact wording is:
"The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient priviledges for some of the items."
All I'm moving are Final Cut Pro movie files and project files and DVD files.

Similar Messages

Cannot copy file because it is in use

On my new iMac I have some files that I have downloaded and want to archive on an external drive. For some reasons Finder complains that the file cannot be copied because it is in use. And it is not. I have tried all that I have found on the Internet including compressing the file and then copying it. But even the compressed file appears to Finder to be in use. Anything you can suggest would be appreciated.
Farzad

Thanks, Don.
You are correct. I agree that no one besides me would know what I have or have not tired. Sorry, Kappy - thanks for having responded to my message. I thought it would be a given that anyone smart enough to find Apple Support Forum would have known to try some initial stuff before getting here. Never the less, I should have mentioned it in another way and been clear.
I have found a solution - for anyone else who may stumble on this discussion. I have sort of succeeded with using the Ternminal to manually copy the files that Finder refuses to copy. But now I can't do that either. It seems the problem is with large files and based on questions of others on the general internet, that it is not just me - it could be the OS. Some of these files I am dealing with are between 1.0 to 6.0 GB.
Thanks again, folks.
Farzad

Can't copy files from iTunes to a folder on the desktop

I posted this in the iTunes board and received no responses, so I'm wondering if it's more of an OS problem.
I'm trying to clean up my iTunes library by taking out music I don't listen to that often. I created a folder on my desktop to store the music, should I decide to bring it back into iTunes in the future.
When I select certain groups of songs and drag them onto the folder, they refuse to copy. Some copy no problem, but others just won't go in the folder. The green circle with the plus sign comes up and the folder is highlighted, but when I release the mouse button...nothing.
Any idea why I can't copy the songs? BTW, none of the music is from the iTunes store, so it's not protected.
1.5 Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I run into that problem periodically. Usually it is because one song file has the same title as another song file (for instance, Knockin' on Heavens door, one by Dylan and one by Clapton, would cause the copy failure). While iTunes has no difficulty, the Finder does, refusing to copy two "identical" items to the same location. Copy in smaller batches, so you can eyeball and make sure each item has a different name. When you run into duplicate names, copy one to another folder and rename it (I append the artist's initials), then move it into your other folder.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

No permission to copy file (to NAS with AFP support) - extended attributes?

For certain files that I copy from one of my drives to the NAS here (Synology 206j), ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard, Finder's behaviour has changed. It will simply refuse to copy the file, stating that "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items."
The source is an external USB drive in Mac OS Extended format, I do have full permissions on the files and in any case the drive is set to ignore ownership.
The target is, like most NASes, in EXT3 format. It's sharing via its own AFP implementation.
I'd have tried repairing permissions, but for whatever reason, it's greyed out on my external drives. Since then I've figured that it was probably not that anyway, which will become apparent:
I tried copying the file via the terminal and it actually worked, but also gave an error: "cp: myfile: could not copy extended attributes to /Volumes/media backup/myfile: Operation not permitted"
This suggests to me that, as expected, the target volume doesn't support extended attributes. But rather than popping up with the message that Leopard did (something along the lines of "your target volume doesn't support extended attributes so your file's metadata may be lost, do you wish to continue") it just aborts instead.
I'm not sure if this is a Snow Leopard problem or a change that Synology need to catch up with. A workaround is to compress the file to ZIP first.
Thought I'd mention it here before trying to report it as a bug somewhere. Anyone else having similar issues, either with a NAS or some other storage, in which case please specify?
Message was edited by: Cloudane

Thanks guys, yeah I've been monitoring the netatalk mailing list myself: they're onto the same problem, have come to the same conclusions about it being Extended Attributes and have much better proof of such than I
It looks like they're currently debating the best way to fix it (pretending to support EAs but sending them to a black hole being the quick and dirty way, but I suspect they'll go for implementation)
It'll be a while for sure, but the Synology guys are very good with Mac support so I'm sure they'll apply the update fairly quickly once the netatalk crew get something public. FWIW, I did detect a certain sense of urgency from the netatalk discussions.
Although it's essentially answered, I'll leave the question marked as unanswered in case Apple come up with a better one
Message was edited by: Cloudane

ITunes not displaying 'copying files' when importing songs

When importing a large number of MP3 files, say an albums worth, iTunes refuses to display the 'copying files' progress bar at the top of the window. It is a process of trial and error clicking on the arrow to get the right progress bar to display, when and if I manage to get the appropriate progress bar up it will not stay for longer than a few milliseconds. Is this something I can fix or yet another sloppy bug in iTunes 7?

Hi,
Welcome to the group. I'm not sure why hitting the arrow next to the box isn't working as mine always works. I have the latest version and haven't had a problem yet.
Not sure if this will help but here is a link you can check out:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304706
Maybe someone else will have a solution.
S.

Cannot copy files from CD or DVD using Finder.

Hi,
I cannot copy files and folders from a CD or DVD to my home folder or any folder therein using Finder. I just get the "Not Permitted" symbol next to the mouse pointer when I try to drag a folder out of the CD (or DVD) to my home folder.
I have checked that I have sufficient permissions to perform this operation and when I copy files from the CD or DVD using the command line, it works without any hassles.
This is extremely strange and I cannot think of why it should happen.
A solution would be most welcome as I would prefer not to have to drop into a command line when I have to copy files from CDs or DVDs.
Regards,
Apurva
Apple iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4)

I am experiencing the same problem: after undoing a copy in the Finder from my CD-drive to my Seagate 200GB FW-drive, I am no longer able to copy single files in the Finder from other drives than my harddisk. I can copy from my hard disk to my external harddisk, I can move and copy files within the harddisk, but I cannot copy from my external hard drive or my CD/DVD-drive to my harddisk or from my CD/DVD-drive to my external hard drive or the internal harddisk.
What is increasingly weird, is that I can easily copy two or more files using drag and drop! I also get a nice green + sometimes when trying to move the files, but there is just no response.
I have tried the following:
0) rebooted.
1) rm com.apple.finder.plist + killall -9 Finder
2) done that in the finder using cmd-alt-esc to kill the finder.
3) removed cache files using Yasu from http://jimmitchelldesigns.com/yasu.html, including rebooting
4) Doublechecked permissions, including locked bits
5) run periodic everything from the Terminal
6) repaired permissions
7) checked the hard disk using disk utility
8) Logged in as another admin user to no avail.
I can use the Terminal to copy the files without any problems, and I can open files in other applications and save them where ever from there, but the Finder refuses to let me.
May Gods wrath kill the Finder for good! I certainly hope 10.5 will show a new Finder!

Copying Files From a Remote Machine through "rcp" command not working.

Hi All,
I'm a new comer to this famous forum. I was trying to go through the PDF "Solaris Advanced User's Guide" .So in chapter 9-"Using the network" i came across "Copying Files From a Remote Machine". And the syntax was "rcp machinename:source destination" . And i got another note. It is like
"The rcp command enables you to copy files from one machine to another. This command uses the remote machine's /etc/hosts.equiv and /etc/passwd files to determine whether you have unchallenged access privileges. The syntax for rcp is similar to the command syntax for cp.".
But i maintained remote machine's IP address in my system's /etc/hosts file. But still i am unable to do the rcp from remote system to my system or vice versa.
Always i am getting error message " **Connection refused**".
Therefore please some one guide me how to perform the " Copying Files From a Remote Machine" through rcp command.
Reghards
Kartik

Hi
The inconvenience of using scp is that you have to type the password every time you stablish a connection. You can work around this, adding a key into the remote hosts_allow file. This implies in more maintenance.
From the rcp man page:
+rcp does not prompt for passwords. It either uses Kerberos authentication which is enabled through command-line options or your current local user name must exist on hostname and allow remote command execution by rsh(1).+
From the rsh man page:
+ If you omit command, instead of executing a single command, rsh logs you in on the remote host using rlogin(1).+
By default, rlogin is disabled on Solaris 10
[SunOS 5.10/bash] root@wgtsinf01:/store/sun/operating-systems
# svcs -a|grep -i rlog
disabled May_11 svc:/network/login:rloginSo, to use rcp you have to enable the rlogin service and set up all the configuration files. Particularly, as already suggested, I too suggest you to use scp. :)
Cheers
-- Andreas
Edited by: Bank_Of_New_Zealand on 15/06/2009 13:09

Copy files fails

The last couple of weeks I have had problems copying files to clients.
All clients are local & I have copied many files to them in the past. No network configuration changes have been made.
The copy fails, then the 'Current Status' column of ARD shows 'Screen Sharing Available' for all clients, even if I was just copying to a single client. All further attampts to copy to any client will fail.
There seems to be no way to recover except to restart (I am a network user on this machine so can't use sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -restart -agent )
The console log shows the following when this problem occurs:
Mar 21 16:37:55 MyMac ARDAgent [263]: no multicast
2008-03-21 16:38:10.572 Remote Desktop[306] ProcessFileTransfer: Failed in SendPacketWithReply for kCmdFT2_AdminToSender with packet sub-command kFT2_AdminSourceFileInfo. Error: -6404
Mar 21 16:38:10 MyMac /Applications/Remote Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Remote Desktop: SendMessageToAgentWithReply: gCmdReplyPtr->cmdResult contained error code -6404
Mar 21 16:38:10 MyMac /Applications/Remote Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Remote Desktop: SendPacketWithReply error -6404
Any ideas?
b.

I just got ARD working with port mapping and I still have not been able to copy a file. Everyone here seems to have had it working at one point, but I have never seen it work once. This is the error message that I am getting from the 'Console'
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang com.apple.launchd[75] ([0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]): Check-in of Mach service failed. PID 330 is not privileged: com.apple.RemoteDesktop.agent+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang /Applications/Remote Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Remote Desktop[329]: error connecting 61 Connection refused+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang /Applications/Remote Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Remote Desktop[329]: unable to connect to agent - try again+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang [0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]: LOG: database system was shut down at 2008-06-06 21:16:01 EDT+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang [0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]: LOG: checkpoint record is at 0/854E90+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang [0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]: LOG: redo record is at 0/854E90; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang [0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]: LOG: next transaction id: 529; next oid: 26205+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang [0x0-0x42042].com.apple.RemoteDesktopAgent[330]: LOG: database system is ready+
+Jun 6 21:22:29 tg-littlebang ARDAgent [330]: ******ARDAgent Ready******+
+Jun 6 21:22:30 tg-littlebang Remote Desktop[329]: CopyToMeTask Unarchiving: UUID not in Computer Database+
+Jun 6 21:22:30 tg-littlebang Remote Desktop[329]: CopyItemsTask Unarchiving: UUID not in Computer Database+
+Jun 6 21:22:30 tg-littlebang Remote Desktop[329]: CopyToMeTask Unarchiving: UUID not in Computer Database+
+Jun 6 21:23:00: --- last message repeated 3 times ---+
Not sure what you guys can make of that. Thanks for taking the time folks!

Copy file from mounted DMG to the Applications folder?

I'm wanting to copy file (application) from a mounted DMG to the Applications folder. Something like:
tell application "Finder"
try
copy "Volumes:Dropbox Installer:Dropbox.app" to folder "Volumes:Macintosh HD:Applications"
end try
end tell
(But that doesn't work).
Preferably overwriting the existing application in that folder. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

tell application "Finder"
duplicate file "Volumes:S001TEST:S001-S001c-TEST.zip" to folder "Volumes:Macintosh HD:Applications" with replacing
end tell
I tried this principle in Applescript (Mavericks) and received error...
Finder got an error: Can’t set folder "Volumes:Macintosh HD:Applications" to file "Volumes:S001TEST:S001-S001c-TEST.zip".
"001TEST" is a disk image with filename of "S001TEST.dmg"
Any ideas why this won't work?

ITunes v10.6.1.7 "Copying files failed. The File name was invalid or too long."

I'm trying to organize my music files using iTunes 10.6.1.7 and I keep getting the error message "Copying files failed. The File name was invalid or too long."
I've got music folders by artist in both the iTunes Music folder and the iTunes Media/Music folder. When I add certain files by drag/drop they sometimes get lost and I don't want that to happen anymore. I used to just consolidate my music files using the File/Library/Organize Library option and that worked, however now when I do that, I get the error message.
I'm a novice and the only online stuff I see is both confusing and refers to earlier versions of iTunes.
My concern is that I have heard that people lose entire libraries of their music when they trry to fix things like this and I don't want that. If this is of any importance, I have several files called iTunes library and temp library. I have no idea what that all means but I'm scared to death of it.
Also, I can't get to the "re-organize library" link at all. It won't let me.
One thing that be of some interest is that when I pull up the properties of the music and media/music files they are marked "read only" I'm also afraid to touch that!
Please help and please know that I am a dummy. Be kind and be clear. Step by step would be great, with images even better. Thanks.

Perhaps nobody knows the answer? We're fellow users here answering questions in our free time when we think we've something useful to contribute.
You can choose to *Consolidate selected tracks* with a right-click menu. Perhaps if you can identify a specific track that won't consolidate and examine the full path to the file & the path that iTunes would create when it consolidates the problem might become apparent. For example iTunes may not be able to move files if the source or destination path length exceeds 255 characters.
tt2

Can no longer move or copy files between drives (not a newbie issue!)

Copying and moving files between internal and external devices, and external to external devices is no longer working.
*For the first time in my life, I get a "Circle with a Bar through it" when attempting to move or copy files.*
This doesn't happen between the two internal drives at all (though I'm worried it might start). It happens between two HFS+J devices as well as HFS+J and FAT32 devices. I can delete files, create folders, and in some instances where things are acting funny, copy to, but not from the device. A noticed side effect that is now happening is that I can no longer move drive icons (CDs, DVDs, HDs) to their upper-right hand corner position on the desktop, if they didn't start there. They don't drop there, just staying where they originally sat (under a list of desktop shortcuts and files). It does not matter if the drives are USB or Firewire, and this never happened previous to about a month ago.
I have done all the basic stuff -- verify/repair drives, reboot multiple times, mount & dismount, change connection ports, backed up-reformatted-and restored the smallest drive, fixed preferences (not at all relevant), Disk Warrior repair the devices, set all permissions to R/W, check all device related infos, researched on-line for a week... Nothing. I have even taken the devices to PCs, where they work perfectly, and as expected.
This issue is apparently either a corruption, or a bug induced by Software Update, in the part of the system that handles files and file structures, or possibly the _USB and Firewire_ interfaces.
I just need to know where all those relevant parts are in the system folders, so I can attempt to restore them from a backup previous to the last "Software Update," (to be sure. And to bring this one step closer to being solved).
A system restore really is not an option, as that would require nearly two weeks of re-tweaking everything from the system to every piece of software included (updating the system about 10 times via software update, reinstalling 90% of the actual software packages... and then updating those multiple times, looking-up all the serials that get killed, etc.)
I have to correct this fast, as we need to move the files from the work drives to the archive drives before we run out of room. So any help would be very appreciated... even if you only know where a few of the system components are located (it just might be one of those, causing the issue).
---TIA

{The last link in this post is most relevant, except for your recent finding.}
The reference was to the User permissions, per each; as when these
become corrupted, the simple 'repair disk permissions' and other
basic duties do not find an error with them. That is because there is
nothing really wrong with them from that standpoint.
Another odd error can happen if one is resizing partitions in an Intel
based Mac, and also if one has or had a BootCamp partition and
wanted to reclaim space. But not always. Thankfully, the only time
I tried Windows on a Mac, the media install disc was corrupted so
it just didn't happen. That was Virtual PC and Windows on PPC.
Tiger brought with it the ability to non-destructively resize partitions.
However, it was not thought to be successful in non-Intel based Macs.
The discussion on that matter came up a few years ago, so someone
has undoubtably tried that in a PPC and reported findings online.
When file sharing between user-account created content runs amok,
then the system(s) will not allow the content to be moved or shared.
So, if any shared user-account created content (including drives
initialized or handled without permissions ignored, clones wrong,
etc) are not the problem, then how does one explain these wrong
ful action circles-with-lines, or action disallowed warning symbols?
There must be a simpler answer. Do you have cats which have
access to your computers in the off-hours? They do keyboard.
Some have been thought to have technical skills outside of the
usual coy and cute play-acting people think they are limited to.
I'm sticking to the cats theory for now; the time is 3:21AM here
and I only am up to get a drink and look outside at +5°F. calm.
Mac OS X 10.4 Help: I can't move or copy a file or folder
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh194.html
• _Rearranging Files (and renaming them)_ InformIT: Mac OS X unleashed
http://www.informit.com/library/content.aspx?b=MacOS_XUnleashed&seqNum=122
It is good to have a backup for the backup; plus a backup Mac.
Good luck & happy computing!
{ edited: was distracted }

Can't copy files to hard disk

I have been having trouble copying/moving files to an external hard drive from my Macbook Air 3,2. I have moved and copied files from the MacBook Air many times to the external hard disk but this time I am having a lot of trouble.
I tried to move 2 movie files but it was taking an incredibly long time. So I clicked the "x" to cancel the transfer. However, it didn't stop it straightaway. The transfer just remained in limbo. Then I got a message saying something about how I didn't disconnect the hard disk properly and the hard disk just seemed to have disconnected itself from my computer even though I didn't eject it.
Then it caused problems for my MacBook Air. When I went to check on the disk in Utilities, it told me I had to use the installation disk to start it up. Other strange things happened like my desktop picture just disappeared and suddenly I had an extra 10GB on my hard drive.
I repaired the disk successfully using the installation thumb USB drive.
(I also repaired the external hard disk).
But I am having the same problem again when I try to move files onto the hard disk. It doesn't seem to work, as it's incredibly slow and when I cancel it, it says I ejected the hard disk wrongly. And the drive does not appear in the Finder Window.
I don't know why this is happening to me. I repaired the MacBook Air HD and I also repaired the external disk and I can't copy movie files onto the hard disk. I have enough space and both disks are Mac Ext Journal formatted. I copied lots of movies the other day (about three days ago and last night) onto the hard disk without any problems.
I really need to move the movies from my computer as I will runn out of disk space on the computer soon (I have about 12 GB left right now).
I tried copying a jpg picture as a test, and it copied it OK but it took a long time. Much longer than normal.
I got an error message just now:
The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “Elechxxxxxxxxxx.mp4” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)
I never got this sort of error message before but now I am getting this message today several times when I try and copy the movies. I don't think it's the files themselves because I copied the same sort of movie files last night without any problem.
And as I said, the jpg file took a really long time to copy, like 2 minutes even though it's only a very small file.

This is not about saving the data on the external drive but I found this information to be helpful in case people have problems ejecting a drive:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1322931
I threw the following:
sudo umount -vf /dev/disk1s1
and the drive umounted. -v is verbose, just in case there were any errors thrown I wanted to know, and -f is force umount, which forces the drive to unmount. Check 'man umount' from terminal to see more info on these.
After doing this a couple times (I was doing some testing with some other things to find a faster solution than having to open terminal and umount) it just started umounting correctly. I have no idea why, but it did. So just keep that command in mind, just in case.
Gryyphyn, out.
This may prevent the drive from being damaged by incorrect ejection. Because I could not eject the drive using force eject, restarting the computer etc, I unplugged the drive, which damaged the hardware of the drive.
If I had known about the command window method, I might have been able to avoid all these problems now that I have with a damaged drive and trying to rescue the data on that drive.
That being said, I think Apple should try and resolve this problem they have with users not being able to eject drives. It seems to be a VERY common problem, and has nothing to do with users' negligence but to do with a systemic fault of Apple's.

ITunes copies files without the "copy files to Media folder" checked.

I've never been a fan of iTunes. My dislike of its impositive ways is directly proportional to its version (10.1.1(4) currently), so I never allow it to do anything automatically for me. I really like it that way.
In recent years, after a couple of experiences filled with much tribulation, I have never checked either "Keep iTunes folder media organised" nor "Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library" under its Preferences, whenever I have been forced to use this accursed application.
But owning an iPod (a couple actually) makes it impossible to live a jovial iTunes-free lifestyle. So yes, I use it on occasion.
Those occasions almost exclusively mean copying music and audio books to and from it. No videos, no Pictures, no nothing else.
I'm using a 4th Generation iPod Touch.
My iTunes library is not on my computer but on an external HD.
Anything I drag and drop to the library comes from folders in that external HD.
Now, the few audio books I own are not even inside my iTunes media folder. They are elsewhere in a folder of their own. But everything had worked O.K.ish so far.
Today, while re-tagging some audio books I asked iTunes to show the file in Finder. And it did. It was indeed inside that external HD... BUT... on the iTunes media folder, not on the folder where I keep those audio books originally.
I checked the iTunes "Preferences" to see if the Gremlins had changed anything. It was as it has always been (with all pertinent options unchecked).
I checked the original folder to see if they had been moved. Nope, they were still there too.
The versions are not the same, since all that re-tagging I'd been doing had of course affected the ones in the "wrong" folder (the one I did not assigned nor agreed to create).
The music is fine (some of which comes from a folder similarly outside the iTunes media folder, although most comes from within), it's just the audio books.
An event of note is that a few days ago, that external HD had a problem and the data had to be moved elsewhere, the HD re-formatted, and the info placed back into it once more. But the paths remain identical since the HD has the same name and the folders are where they once were. I've no idea if this has any effect on anything at all, but I thought to mention it.
So this mystery is such. Any takers?
The questions are: Why does this happen? How can I stop it from happening again (aside from not using iTunes :-D).
It is not that big a problem since I have very few audio books thus the duplicate is not too large, but I'd like to know how to avoid it, if possible.
Thanks in advance for any information on this.

iTunes prefs -> Advanced. Uncheck *Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library*.
Any reason you don't want them in the music folder? You could add them to iTunes and delete the from your documents folder.

Does itunes automatically copy files to its folder?

If I download music from a website to my desktop, and then doubleclick the icon on my desktop, it starts playing in itunes. But it also looks like it saves a copy of the file in the itunes music folder. Can i just safely delete the files off my desktop now (and still play the music in future) because they have been automically copied into the itunes folder?
Also, is there a way to turn this feature off, so that I can still play the music by clicking on the icons on the desktop, but itunes doesn't automatically copy the files into its folder?

Hi Jeff,
iTunes does put a copy of the song in your Music Folder, and yes, you can delete the file off your Desktop as soon as it opens in iTunes, I'll take a minute now to see if you can turn off the automatic copying feature.
Edit:
You can turn off the auto-copy setting by going to iTunes-Preferences-Advanced-uncheck the box next to "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library"

Why when i copy files from downloads to a new folder,then i delete them from the downloads i will loose the file?

tell me please when i copy files from downloads it will be a new file with new capacity? i mean if a file is 2 mb, when i copy it it will be new 2mb ?

If you copy it to another folder, e.g., Documents, and you can see it in the Downloads folder then you now have two copies of the file. If you delete one copy, the other stays intact. If you keep both, there is no harm, although the amount of disk space used is twice as big as when you only keep one copy.

Refuses to copy files

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for