Can't Export Render Settings, get Permission Error

[andymc4997]

Hi everyone, 

When I try to export my render settings in Maya '23, I get this error:

# Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2023/scripts/others/unifiedRenderGlobalsWindow.mel line 766: PermissionError: file C:\Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2023\Python\lib\os.py line 225: [WinError 5] Access is denied: 'C:/Users/andymc'

I've tried setting permissions on multiple folders in these directories with no luck. Any ideas how to fix?

Thanks in advance. 

[andymc4997]

Anyone at all? Surely this is something pretty simple, I just can't find the fix yet.

This may have literally just cost me a job because I didn't realize that somehow my Ray Depth was set too low, which compromised the realism/bounce light in my scene, and that was saved as a preset in my previous version of Maya, so I was used it being there.

[teddude75]

What's the error when you save to desktop? It might be a conflict with python. But I'm just guessing

[andymc4997]

Hi @teddude75 , well, after more digging on the subject, yes, I think it's something to do with python. I installed a new version and that didn't fix it. Then, I just decided to set Maya to run as administrator, and it worked, so that seems to be a workaround for now. 

[AlperUzmezler5113]

Create the folder for the user above for that preset. Don't know it is older user....

[TR-BOB]

I have got the exact same problem. I get the error because Maya is trying to access the wrong user folder. It uses the username that I had on my previous machine. I am not sure where Maya gets this old data from. I have not yet been able to find the username in any of the preferences files. Any help from Autodesk would be appreciated.

[TR-BOB · Accepted solution]

Ok, found a solution! In userPrefs.mel I did a search and replace of my old username with my new username. Now I can finally export the render settings. The userPrefs file can be found here (on Windows):
Documents\Maya\2023\prefs\userPrefs.mel

[AlperUzmezler5113]

Thank you for taking the time and updating us. Greatly appreciated.

[AlperUzmezler5113]

Thank you for taking the time and updating us. Greatly appreciated.

[jade_wak0001]

I know people above have found ways to solve this issue, but in case there are any other panicked 2nd year animation students who stumble across this same error like I did, I'll quickly share what fixed it for me.

I was trying to render sequence a single frame as an exr to composite it, but nothing would show up in my folders and I got the above error. Unlike the other posters, I have never changed users on this PC, so their solves were not working for me. After a while of fiddling with my PC's permission settings, I instead went back into maya render settings and edited my naming conventions of the renders to be simpler, and changed Name.ext (Single Frame) to Name.#.ext, and set the start and end frames to 1. It's a simple solution, but it was enough to make Maya realise that there was no actual error.