Message: The file appears to be locked.

QUESTION

When I try to open or save a particular file, I receive one of the following error messages: 

• "#272032141 - The file appears to be locked. This could be the result of another user or program using the file. This may also result from having insufficient security privileges to access this file."
  
  
• "#272032635 - Unable to write to file. The file may be locked by an active plan or layout."
  
  
• "#272032556 - Unable to write to existing file. Verify the file is not open or locked by another application."

What do I do?

ANSWER

There are a couple of broad reasons why one of these errors might occur:

• Controlled Folder Access/Full Disk Access is not correctly configured;
• There's not enough available storage/drive space;
  
• The file might already be open in an application, possibly by another Chief Architect user;
  
• Your current user account for this computer may not have sufficient rights (privileges) to save or open the file.
  

The best way to resolve this issue will depend on the cause. 

Configuring Controlled Folder Access/Full Disk Access

If you receive the first error message mentioned above, the Chief Architect or Home Designer program may not have access to the file you are attempting to open. This can occur if the Controlled Folder Access setting is enabled for Chief Architect programs on a system with Windows installed, or if the Full Disk Access setting is disabled for Chief Architect programs on a system with macOS. To resolve this behavior, please refer to the "Troubleshooting Error Messages Associated With the Program's Data Folder" resource in the Related Articles section.

Storage/drive space is full

If you receive the second or third error message mentioned above, check to make sure that you have a reasonable amount of free/available storage space. If you don't have at least 5 GB of available space, please access the appropriate resource below to learn how to free up space on your system:

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple macOS
  

If the file is already in use

There are several scenarios in which a Chief Architect file that you wish to open might already be in use elsewhere. It could, for example, be:

• Open in another version of Chief Architect or Home Designer running on your computer;
  
• Open in a session of the current version of Chief Architect or Home Designer that has not completely shut down and is running in the background on your computer;
  
• Open in a session of Chief Architect or Home Designer running on another computer on your network, which is not recommend nor supported.
  

The first of these scenarios is easy to resolve - if another version of Chief Architect or Home Designer is running, simply save your work and close the file. The second scenario requires a little bit of investigation. Save your work, close your Chief Architect program, then navigate to the appropriate section below that corresponds to your operating system. The third scenario means that the file may be stored in a shared location on this computer or on another system that is connected to your local area network, and the file is being used or edited by another process on that system.If the file is locked because another user on the same network has it open on their system, then you can have them close the file so that you can open it. If it is locked and does not appear to be in use on any other systems, restart all the computers that are connected to the network and try opening it again.

Microsoft Windows:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to open the Task Manager.
   
   Alternatively, you can access the Task Manager by performing a search on your computer for "Task Manager" or by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete on your keyboard and clicking on the Task Manager option.
   
   
   
2. Click More details, select the Processes tab, then browse the list for any instances of Chief Architect or Home Designer.
   
   
   
3. If you find an instance of your program still running, select it and click End task to terminate the process.
   
   
   
   

Apple macOS:

1. From your Desktop, navigate to Go> Utilities from the menu bar.
   
   
   
2. Open the Activity Monitor app.
   
   
   
3. If you find any instances of your Chief Architect or Home Designer program still running, select it and click the Stop button.
   
   
   
   

If you do not have adequate user rights (privileges)

If you are sure that the plan or layout file is not already in use elsewhere, then it is likely that your user account for this system does not have sufficient rights to access the file where it is currently saved.

One way to avoid this issue is to have the user that created the file(s) copy them to a location that you have access to - for example, the Public user's Documents directory.

To learn more about file and folder permissions for individual users on your computer visit the Microsoft or Apple website.