# Folders stuck on Read-Only



## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Hi all,

I've got a Synology DS209 4tb NAS on the same network as my Windows 7 Ultimate PC and am having problems editing some files. Well, all the files, really. I use the NAS as my network share/media server for all my media files that include several hundred 5.1 DTS .WAV low-compression audio files. And lots of other stuff as well that's got the same problem, but this is the main issue. In the root of the NAS there's a shared folder called Music, and inside that folder are individual folders with the album name, and these folders contain the song files. Now for some reason, all these folders are read-only (when I click on Properties, the read-only box is blued out) and if I click it to disable the read-only and click Apply and exit the Properties dialogue box, nothing changes. If I click on Properties again, the read-only box is blued out again. What I am trying to do is edit the id3 tags of the music files (for example, to label the song name, album name, and artist and so on). I cannot make the change through Windows Explorer. I have used several id3 tag-editing programs, none of which work. In these programs, I will select the appropriate file and enter the relevant artist/album/etc. information and click Save or Apply or whatever depending on the program, but nothing sticks, it just reverts to how it originally was.
I have tried changing the owner, but that doesn't work. I have tried changing permissions, but that makes no difference. The permission changes don't stick, just like all of the other changes I've attempted.
What's really irking me is that even if I move the folder or individual files off the NAS and onto my C: drive, my secondary D: drive, or my external USB hard drive, the same problem exists. These folders and files are in a perpetual state of read-only (remember, the box is blued out, not ticked). I have noticed that the same issue is persistent throughout the rest of the NAS (my Movie shared folder with all my films, my Data and Download folders and the folders inside them) all except for the few files I have that already had id3 tags, which are literally 2 or 3 out of several thousand and with those files, I can edit the tags properly.

At this point I have no idea what could be causing the problem or what the solution might be.:4-dontkno

If anybody has any ideas or could shed some light or drop some knowledge on me, I would be much obliged and eternally grateful. Please, and thank you for reading through this long post.


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## TheOutcaste (Mar 19, 2009)

You can't change (or see) the read only attribute of a folder from the Properties window. The box will always appear that way. If checked, it will mark the files inside as read only (set the Read Only attribute), if unchecked, it will mark the files as not read only (unset Read Only). It will not change the attribute on folders. That can only be done from a Command Prompt.

To see the attributes on a folder, you need to add the Attribute Column in Details view. Right click in the window, point to *View*, click *Details*.
Right click on the column header and check *Attributes*. If *Attributes* isn't visible, click on *More...* and select it from the dialog.

This will let you see if the folder/files are actually set as Read Only.

Most programs will ignore the Read Only attribute on a folder, they only look at the attribute on the file itself, and either ignore the Read Only attribute, or will give you an error when you try to save changes.

It would help if you can post the names of the programs you are using, someone who uses a particular program may know if there is a trick to setting them up.


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Thanks for the quick reply. The *Attribute* for the folders is just the letter *D*, and the *Attribute* for the audio files is just the letter *A*. I have tried 3 programs so far: *AudioShell Tag Editor*, which runs a script that adds two additional options when you right click on the audio file; along with General, Security, Details and Previous Versions, Audioshell adds a tab called AudioShell Tag Editor that gives all the fields for you to input information (title, artist, album, genre, year, album art, etc.), and another tab labeled AudioShell Information, which will just read and display the tag information. I can input the relevant information in the Tag Editor tab and click Apply, and nothing changes and the information is still missing when I click on the AudioShell Information tab, before and after I exit Properties. Audioshell works fine on the few other random audio files that I have which aren't part of the main library I'm trying to create right now. Another program I tried is* Tag&Rename*, which is a full program on its own which when you open, you can drag-and-drop or open all your audio files and batch-change or individually change the tags. This also looks like it's completed when I click Save Tags, but the tags never show up. I've tried playing around with the settings to no avail. The final program is* Mp3tag*, but I don't think that it even recognizes WAV files so it doesn't do anything for me anyway, though it is one of the more popular programs for creating tags on the internet. I was thinking of ripping all the DTS-Cd's again using Nero like I originally did because it used to have Gracenote database integration, so it would automatically find the correct information and create tags when ripping the disc, but apparently they no longer use that in the newest version of Nero so that option is gone. Any other ideas?


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## kenny111111 (Mar 24, 2009)

quick question, can you see/play these files in wmp?..(i use wmp for tag editing) 
right click on file>advanced tag editor (in wmp)

just a thought


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

I haven't tried that yet, because I've disabled Windows Media Player and all its components in Windows 7 by default because they would randomly take up CPU usage in the background even when I never used them. I'll enable them right now and try to do it that way and see if it works through WMP. Lets hope it does. Thanks for the suggestion, Kenny. I'll report back here in a few minutes with the results.


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Alright Windows Media Player didn't work either. I enabled it and drag-and-dropped one of the offending files into the window where it showed up with unknown title/artist/album/etc. and only the file name was there, which is "01 - Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother Suite." First I right-clicked on the file and tried to click "Edit" but that was grayed out. I restarted my computer and opened Windows Media Player again. Now I right-clicked on it and clicked Properties and went to the "Content" tab where there was initially no information, and closed the Properties window. I then again right-clicked on the file and clicked "Find Album Information" and it found the correct album from whatever online database Windows Media Player uses and applied that information, but it seems only to stick to Windows Media Player. Now in WMP the file has the title, track number, artist, album, genre, year, and all that information on display in the details view as well as under the Contents tab in Properties, but none of this information is present on the source file itself. When I right click on the file and hit "Open File Location," it takes me to the directory (in this case, the desktop, for this test file) and when I right-click on the original file, all the information is still missing in the Details tab under Properties as well in the AudioShell information tab. So the data seems to only be stored in Windows Media Player.

Also, these are DTS 5.1channel WAV files, not standard WAV, so when I try to play them through WMP I only get static (you need a program like VLC or MPC to play these, or a DVD/Bluray player for the discs). However, this makes no difference on how the tags should behave, it just has a different audio stream.

Any other ideas?


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## kenny111111 (Mar 24, 2009)

yeah, i just looked at my wifes win7, it has wmp 12, vista has wmp 11...12 don't have the "advanced tag editor", good luck


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Copy the files into Music folder then . . .

Change the file attributes of the copied files in the music folder - 
START | type *cmd.exe * | RIGHT-click on cmd.exe | "Run as Administrator" | Paste this command - 

```
[font=lucida console]
attrib -r "%userprofile%\music\*.*"
[/font]
```
Regards. . .

jcgriff2

.


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

jcgriff2 said:


> Copy the files into Music folder then . . .
> 
> Change the file attributes of the copied files in the music folder -
> START | type *cmd.exe * | RIGHT-click on cmd.exe | "Run as Administrator" | Paste this command -
> ...


When I input that code exactly as you said (and also if i change "userprofile" to my name, Akbar), I get an error "*Parameter format not correct -*"

If I add a quote at the end of the line, which it looked like you might have accidentally missed, giving me [attrib -r "%userprofile%\music\*.**"*], I get the error "*Not resetting hidden file - C:\Users\Akbar\music\desktop.ini*"

When I add my name (Akbar) instead of "userprofile," with the additional quote at the end, making [attrib -r "%*Akbar*%\music\*.**"*], I get the error "*Path not found - C:\Windows\system32\%Akbar%\music*"

Am I doing something wrong here? Also, My Music folder includes two locations. The first one, on the standard C:\ drive, is the one iTunes automatically creates to store its downloaded album artwork. My default Music directory is on my 3rd E:\ hard drive for storage space reasons. So the two locations are:

C:\Users\Akbar\My Music
and
E:\Music

Should I be addressing this in any way? Please let me know what to do, it is important I get this library up and running for a client before tomorrow morning.


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

The 2nd quote was missing - apologies.

Run these 2 commands from the Administrator cmd/DOS prompt -

```
attrib -r -s -h "%userprofile%\music\*.*" /s /d 

attrib -r -s -h "e:\music\*.*" /s /d
```
Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Thanks for the quick reply. I ran both those commands and something was happening because it took a few seconds to complete and the drive was spinning, but I still can't change any of the information. When I right-click and hit Properties and go to the Audioshell editor and input information, it doesn't stay. When I try to edit the information that appears at the bottom of the Explorer window when I've clicked on an audio file (it shows the File Name and type, then Contributing Artists: Genre: Year: Album: Rating: and lets you specify all that information by clicking on the field next to it, when I enter anything into any of those fields, I get the error:
"
You need permission to perform this action

You require permission from Administrators to make changes to this file

01 - Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother Suite
Item Type: VLC Media file (.wav)
Size:237 MB
"
and when I try to edit the same information on a copy of the file that is in the Music folder on the C:\ drive, it gives me the same error except it says that I require permission from Akbar-PC\Akbar to make changes to this file. Now for both files under the Security tab in properties, I have set all the permissions properly. Administrators (Akbar-PC\Administrators) has full permissions [all boxes are checked but they're gray], Users (Akbar-PC\Users) has full permissions [All are checked, but Read & execute and Read are gray], SYSTEM has all permissions [all boxes are checked but they're gray], Authenticated Users has all permissions [they're all checked and gray except Full control, which is black]. When I say "all permissions," I mean everything except "Special Permissions" which isn't checked on any of them and I dont' know how to set that.

Thanks so much for your help and time so far, I really appreciate it. Is there anything else that could be possible or am I just a lost cause?


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Add "Take Ownership" to your context menu (Right-click menu).

Download the .reg file and allow registry merge to take place -

http://sysnative.com/0x8/takeown_icacls_jcgriff2_Windows7_Vista.reg

Then, RIGHT-click on folder/ file, select "Take Ownership"


Activate Hidden Admin user account - Enable Hidden Admin Account - sysnative.com MVP 

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Took ownership, accessed the hidden Administrator account, tried again, and still I get the Permissions error. Took ownership again from inside the Administrator account and tried it again for the same Permissions error.

The fact that I can't do what I wanted to do has now become secondary to the mystery of why the h3ll I can't change anything on these files! What a conundrum! What could be causing such a thing?!

Well, I'm flat out of ideas if you are. Got anything left? Does anybody have any idea as to what could possibly be doing this? Thanks again for your time my friend, I owe you a favor or a beer if you're ever in the Los Angeles area.


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Metadata issues - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit: MP3 editing & displaying metadata in windows Explorer


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## snackbidi (Jan 23, 2011)

Never give up, eh? Good man.

Unfortunately I've tried the solution they mentioned in that post (and tried it again just now, just to be sure) and that program is not compatible with .WAV files, which is what all mine are. It is literally compatible with every other file, just not the ones I happen to have. I'll do some more reading on that post after dinner to make sure they don't mention some other solution that might work for me. And I continue to be indebted to you.


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

More post-dinner reading - Information about the Multimedia file types that Windows Media Player supports


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## TheOutcaste (Mar 19, 2009)

Can you edit tags on MP3 or WMA files? It may be an issue with this particular file format. Download the *mediasample.wav* file from the article in the previous post and see if you can add info to it.

You say you've disabled WMP and it's components. What else have you disabled? You may have disabled Windows ability to edit media file metadata, which would give you a permissions error. In that case it's not permissions on the files themselves, but permission to access the components needed to do the editing; if they are disabled, you don't have "permission".

I installed AudioShell on Win 7 Home Premium 32 bit. For plain wav files, the info added is only visible on the *AudioShell Information* tab, it's not visible on the *Details* tab. Looks like Windows doesn't read the RIFF chunk that the metadata is stored in on WAV files. Windows also won't let you add/edit any info on the *Details* tab for WAV files.


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