What to do when photos can't be read on import?

Question

This issue has been discussed recently, however, I have tried everything that has been suggested and the issues still isn't solved. I have used LR from LR3 to LR 5.4.  I have had no problems until yesterday when I got the error message that the photos, which I could see initially, could not be read.  I tried connecting the camera directly and got the same message.  I then downloaded a few of he photos on my card into iPhoto; this worked perfectly.  So, I tried uploading to Lightroom from a file in Pictures . . . got the same message.
This is what I have tried:
1) The obvious; restarting my computer.
2). Making sure my read/write permissions were set correctly
3). Recalibrating my monitor with Spyder Pro because it as said the calibration could have become corrupt and LR was particularly sensitive to this kind of corruption.
3). Closing LR, Click option Go to Library, Preferences  (/Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Lightroom5.plist) AND delete, rename or remove this: com.adobe.Lightroom5.plist. The promise was that the file would be recreated when LR opened the next time.  I did this.  I deleted the file, emptied my trash and then opened LR.  Indeed, a new file replaced the one deleted . . . BUT I put in my memory card and tried again to import the photos.  I got the same message -- the files cannot be read.
I am losing precious work time and don't know what to do next.  If I could uninstall LR and reload it, I would try it.  However, LR has no uninstaller and I'm not at all confident that moving it to the trash and reloading it would do any good at all.  Does anyone have any other ideas to try?  I love doing my post processing with LR and I don't want to give up on it! 

Answer 1

It is possible that resetting your preferences, by deleting the plist file, set the last-remembered import panel destination to somewhere not writable, masking the original issue, but the solution is still the same, set your Import Copy-as-DNG Destination folder to a known place that has writable permissions.
Here is what the Copy as DNG destination is on my Import panel--something I never do so it's still the default user library Pictures folder, as compared to yours which appears to be the root of your Macintosh HD which may not be writable:
BTW, the solution to import problems that involves creating a new display profile is for when the imports work but the import grid thumbnails and perhaps thumbnails and previews of the images already imported into LR are gray boxes instead of showing the actual image content.  This is a different situation than you are facing, it seems, but rebuilding a new display profile wouldn't hurt anything, either.