TextEdit does not save

FYI in my case, if I DUPLICATE an existing textedit file on my exfat flash drive by using FINDER Copy/Paste, and open that dupe, and try to make changes & save -- then the error occurs...

BUT if I instead duplicate the file using File / Save As -- in the SAME DIRECTORY / FLASH DRIVE -- I don't have the problem! I can make changes and save.

(I also had to OMIT adding the .rtf extension to the file name. That also caused save failure.)

I think I narrowed it down. Obviously this is file system related. I have always been able to reproduce this with Carbon Copy Cloner by performing a specific backup task exFAT -> another exFAT volume. But this issue was also occurring sporadically without CCC being involved, so CCC can't be the main culprit, but rather a consequential part of the issue.

Thinking about if I had a file system related process always running in the background, I realized: yes - Paragon NTFS for Mac; and even not the most current but an older version, 15.5.106.

I just uninstalled it completely/ thoroughly, rebooted, ran the CCC exFAT backup task that would always trigger the bug - GONE for the first time after upgrading macOS from Mojave to Catalina - yee-ha !!

So if anybody else here has Paragon NTFS for Mac v.15.x installed: uninstall it, reboot, re-validate, and report back, please.

Thank you.

Switch the volume to HFS and try again. Or reformat the existing ExFAT storage using a different tool, and try again, on the off chance that this particular ExFAT is incompatible with TextEdit or the local Mac file system expectations. This wouldn’t be the first mildly-corrupt FAT volume around.

Is the external drive a hard drive/SSD or a USB stick? The quality of USB sticks is extremely poor. Is the drive connected directly to the Mac as some adapters, docks, and hubs may cause compatibility problems.

Are you able to copy files to the exFAT drive using the Finder?

Does TextEdit have permission to access the external drive? With macOS Big Sur you sometimes need to grant specific permission to certain apps to access certain areas. You can customize these settings under the "Privacy" pane in the "Security & Privacy" System Preferences.

What is the exact model of your Mac? There have been a lot of user reports where some USB drives are just not compatible with an M1 Mac.

you're welcome. Took me quite a while to figure this out. More info can be found on https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/sandbox-escape2.html. The terminal command to display app entitlements would be (Textedit as an example).

codesign --display --entitlements - /System/Applications/TextEdit.app

The deciding key is

<key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key>
	<true/>

Any app which is a victim to this bug has that key set to true inside the app's (Contents/MacOS) binary, which can be seen via any hex editor.

There might be a way to toggle key values via the codesign commmand, but I never followed up on that because I don't propose that approach. For now in Catalina, I'm fine unmounting/ remounting, which I can do quickly via the Jettison app which inserts an icon into the menu bar.

Does TextEdit have “Full Disk Access” in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy? It must.

Not just that this bug has been known to Apple for ages (at least since May 2012 during OS X Lion 10.7, see "Applications occasionally start showing "The document could not be autosaved" dialogs"); it has also been know since then that this is indeed sandbox related, see this comment in the same thread, outlined in detail in this radar by the same commenter!

Apple appears to have fixed this with some OS X/ macOS version. As others have testified, this didn't occur anymore at least in macOS Mojave 10.14x, and re-surfaced in macOS Catalina 10.15. That's called a regression.

Most likely this is due to the sandbox related extended privacy protection introduced in Catalina, see Mac pro Howard Oakley's article Catalina’s privacy protection backfires[..].

I can reproduce this bug 100% on my friend's MacBook Air, also with Catalina. On my Mac, I did a fresh installation of Catalina and was also able to reproduce this bug right away.

Here this bug also occurs in Big Sur - but not anymore in Monterey. So Apple, you do exactly know the underlying issue and how to fix this, which you have proven at least twice.

Please publish a fix for Big Sur and Monterey in your next macOS update. Thank you.

----- Just a small selection of dozens of threads out there ------

• TextEdit Save Error Message "you don't have permission..." (2013)
• I can't save files after installing macOS Catalina (2019)
• macos - TextEdit can't save (or even autosave) (2018)
• Catalina: Why won't TextEdit save my document to my external hard drive? (2020)

This happened to me after upgrading from Mojave to Catalina. It only effects Apps that use Apple's Sandbox system like Textedit, Preview, Microsoft Office Apps, Smultron etc., and also only occurs on non APFS or HFS+ volumes - to be exact, only on volumes formatted with one of the FAT "flavors" (FAT16, FAT32, exFat).

Workaround: unmount effected disk/ volume, remount - voila!

why the f is a post here only editable for a few minutes .. :(

Issue is back, even without Paragon NTFS for Mac .. and yes, I did a complete uninstall with both, the official uninstaller + an uninstall script..

I am seeing this problem on Mac OS 11.1 on my M1 MacBook Air. It has TextEdit version 1.16. Is this problem fixed in later versions of Mac OS?