Message “VI Already Exists and You Do Not Have Permission to Replace It”

Updated Jul 22, 2019

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW

Issue Details

I am trying to save changes I have made to a VI/project/control, but I keep getting the error, "Cannot save VI (project or control) " VI name .vi" ("Project name.lvprj" or "Control name.ctl"). The VI already exists and you do not have permission to replace it."

What am I doing wrong?

 

Solution

This error will occur when the VI has been set to read-only in Windows. You can change this setting by:

1) Right-clicking on the file in Windows and selecting Properties.
2) If the Read-only box is checked, LabVIEW will not have the ability to change the contents of the file. Deselecting the Read-only box will remove the error.

If this message shows up when saving a LabVIEW project you should change the Read-Only Attribute for each component of the project. 
If this happens for all the files that are inside a folder you can change the Read-Only Attribute in the folder containing all the files. 

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