Many times, it happens while using raspberry pi that we’re not able to edit some particular files. For me it has happened with
Motion.conf file, which is used to configure the video streaming service called motion on raspberry pi
Rc.local, this file resides in /etc and is used for adding commands to run programs on boot
What happens sometimes, is due to wrong file closure, or opening/closing while the file is being used, the file gets locked in the memory of the operating system and we just need to remove the residual stuffs which is causing this file to remain locked.
How to identify the problem? Whenever you try to open this locked file, say for example using a text editor like nano, you’ll get below error
Now to resolve this issue, please follow below steps
Go to the exact location in your terminal, where your expected file is residing for opening, in my case, it was /etc/motion/ here I had motion.conf file which I needed editing but I was getting above nerror
Now use this command to delete the swap file that is created, as long as the swap is there, you can’t edit the original file, so the command is
sudo rm .Filename.extention.swp, please mind the initial dot (.) is compulsory, so in my case, the command was
sudo rm .motion.conf.swp and hit enter
now try opening that file using your usual editor like nano, and the file will open
normally now
sudo nano motion.conf
