Change SQLite database mode to read-write

(this error message is typically misleading, and is usually a general permissions error)

On Windows

• If you're issuing SQL directly against the database, make sure whatever application you're using to run the SQL is running as administrator
• If an application is attempting the update, the account that it uses to access the database may need permissions on the folder containing your database file. For example, if IIS is accessing the database, the IUSR and IIS_IUSRS may both need appropriate permissions (you can try this by temporarily giving these accounts full control over the folder, checking if this works, then tying down the permissions as appropriate)

To share personal experience I encountered with this error that eventually fix both. Might not necessarily be related to your issue but it appears this error is so generic that it can be attributed to gazillion things.

1. Database instance open in another application. My DB appeared to have been in a "locked" state so it transition to read only mode. I was able to track it down by stopping the a 2nd instance of the application sharing the DB.

2. Directory tree permission - please be sure to ensure user account has permission not just at the file level but at the entire upper directory level all the way to / level.

Thanks

On Ubuntu, change the owner to the Apache group and grant the right permissions (no, it's not 777):

sudo chgrp www-data <path to db.sqlite3>
sudo chmod 664 <path to db.sqlite3>

Update

You can set the permissions for group and user as well.

sudo chown www-data:www-data <path to db.sqlite3>

On win10 after a system crash, try to open db with DB Browser, but read only. Simply delete the journal file.

I'm using SQLite on ESP32 and all answers here are "very strange".... When I look at the data on the flash of the ESP I notice there is only one file for the whole db (there is also a temp file).

In this db file we have of course the user tables but also the system tables so "sqlite_master" for example which contain the definiton of the tables. So, it's seems hard to belive this can be a "chmod" problem, because if the file is read only, even creating table would be impossible as SQLite would be unable to write the "sqlite_master" data... So I think our friend user143482 is trying to acesse a "read only" table. In SQLite source code we can see a function named tabIsReadOnly with this comment:

 /* Return true if table pTab is read-only.
 **
 ** A table is read-only if any of the following are true:
 **
 **   1) It is a virtual table and no implementation of the xUpdate method
 **      has been provided
 **
 **   2) It is a system table (i.e. sqlite_master), this call is not
 **      part of a nested parse and writable_schema pragma has not 
 **      been specified
 **
 **   3) The table is a shadow table, the database    connection is in
 **      defensive mode, and the current sqlite3_prepare()
 **      is for a top-level SQL statement.
 */

If <db_name>.sqlite-journal file exists in the same folder with DB file, that means your DB is opened currently and in the middle of some changes (or it had been at the moment when DB folder was copied). If you try to open DB at this moment error attempt to write a readonly database (or similar) could appear.

As a solution, wait till <db_name>.sqlite-journal disappears or remove it (is not recommended on the working system)

In the project path Terminal django_project#

sudo chown django:django *

After hours of hit and trial, I solved my issue. Even though I had changed my permissions (used chmod 777 db.sqlite3 as well, sadly), but the issue was something else altogether.

Finally this thing worked (probably because I used bitnami)

$ chown :daemon /path/to/your/sqlite/file

$ chmod 664 /path/to/your/sqlite/file

$ chown :daemon /path/to/your/project

$ chmod 775 /path/to/your/project

"chmod 777 databasefilename" worked well on my debian 10 credit:Dennis "chmod 775 databasefilename" is the cause of the error

remove the db journal file in my case it was: sudo rm universal3a.db-journal

I have got this message when trying to open the DB in the folder Programs files (the same folder where DB Broser Sqlite is). I have tried opening the DB in a different folder and the problem has disapeared. Everything is OK.

Open Sqlite Studio as an administrator and try again