Art library will not save

You see

In the Art Library panel, a red Save error banner appears at the top of the grid. Add / Delete / Unload buttons may be disabled. Any new edits stay in memory but are not written to disk.

What is happening

Beam Bench tried to write to the .bbart file and the OS refused. State stays in memory (your changes are not lost), but destructive operations are blocked until the next save succeeds so you do not lose data through a cascade.

Fix

If file permissions are wrong

The most common cause. The .bbart file's path is not writable for some reason.

• Check the file's permissions in Finder / Explorer / ls -la.
• If you are running Beam Bench as a different user than the file's owner, fix by changing ownership or moving the file.
• If the file is in a system directory (/Library/..., /Program Files/...), move it to a writable location.

If the file is locked

Another process holds the file open:

• Close any text editor that has the .bbart open.
• Check Time Machine / Backblaze / cloud-sync tools that may have it locked briefly during sync.
• Wait a moment, then click in the Art Library to trigger another save attempt.

If the disk is full

Self-explanatory. Free space.

If the file is on a network share

Some network filesystems (SMB, NFS) have unpredictable write behavior. Move the library to local disk.

If the file is on a read-only mount

USB sticks formatted as exFAT sometimes mount read-only on macOS. Reformat or use a different drive.

To recover the in-memory state

While the error banner is up:

• Use Save As... (right-click the library in the sidebar) to write to a new location. If that succeeds, your changes are preserved at the new path.
• Then Unload the broken library and Load the new one.

Verify it worked

• The Save error banner is gone.
• Edits persist after closing and re-opening the app.

Still stuck?

• Art Library panel reference.
• .bbart art libraries reference.
• Send a feedback report with the error context.