Unable to open a realm at path - ios

Question

I am trying to use a bundled realm file without success. I know that my realm file was copied successfully to my application’s Directory but I ca not read it.
fatal error: 'try!' expression unexpectedly raised an error: "Unable
to open a realm at path
'/Users/…/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/…/data/Containers/Data/Application/…/Documents/default-v1.realm'.
Please use a path where your app has read-write permissions."
func fullPathToFileInAppDocumentsDir(fileName: String) -> String {
let paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory,NSSearchPathDomainMask.UserDomainMask,true)
let documentsDirectory = paths[0] as NSString
let fullPathToTheFile = documentsDirectory.stringByAppendingPathComponent(fileName)
return fullPathToTheFile
}
In didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:
let fileInDocuments = fullPathToFileInAppDocumentsDir("default-v1.realm")
if !NSFileManager.defaultManager().fileExistsAtPath(fileInDocuments) {
let bundle = NSBundle.mainBundle()
let fileInBundle = bundle.pathForResource("default-v1", ofType: "realm")
let fileManager = NSFileManager.defaultManager()
do {
try fileManager.copyItemAtPath(fileInBundle!, toPath: fileInDocuments)
} catch { print(error) }
}
And setting the configuration used for the default Realm:
var config = Realm.Configuration()
config.path = fileInDocuments
Realm.Configuration.defaultConfiguration = config
let realm = try! Realm(configuration: config) // It fails here!!! :-)
As the documentation suggests, I have tried as well to open it directly from the bundle path by setting readOnly to true on the Realm.Configuration object. I am not sure if this is something related to Realm or if I am overlooking something with the file system…. I have also tried to store the file in the Library folder.
Realm 0.97.0
Xcode Version 7.1.1

Answer 1

I tried to open the realm file using Realm's browser app and the file does not open anymore. It has now new permissions: Write only (Dropbox). So, I decided to change the file permission back to read/write using file manager’s setAttributes method. Here is how I did it:
// rw rw r : Attention for octal-literal in Swift "0o".
let permission = NSNumber(short: 0o664)
do {
try fileManager.setAttributes([NSFilePosixPermissions:permission], ofItemAtPath: fileInDocuments)
} catch { print(error) }
The realm file can now be open at this path.

Answer 2

That exception gets thrown whenever a low level I/O operation is denied permission to the file you've specified (You can check it out on Realm's GitHub account).
Even though everything seems correct in your sample code there, something must be set incorrectly with the file location (Whether it be the file path to your bundle's Realm file, or the destination path) to be causing that error.
A couple of things I can recommend trying out.
Through breakpoints/logging, manually double-check that both fileInDocuments and fileInBundle are being correctly created and are pointing at the locations you were expecting.
When running the app in the Simulator, use a tool like SimPholders to track down the Documents directory of your app on your computer, and visually ensure that the Realm file is being properly copied to where you're expecting.
If the Realm file is in the right place, you can also Realm's Browser app to try opening the Realm file to ensure that the file was copied correctly and still opens properly.
Try testing the code on a proper iOS device to see if the same error is occurring on the native system.
If all else fails, try doing some Realm operations with the default Realm (Which will simply deposit a default.realm file in your Documents directory), just to completely discount there isn't something wrong with your file system
Let me know how you go with that, and if you still can't work out the problem, we can keep looking. :)

Answer 3

This will occur if you have your realm file open in Realm Studio at same time you relaunch your app. Basically in this case Realm can't get write permissions if Studio already has them.

Answer 4

To add to the solution based on what I've discovered, make note of what error Realm reports when it throws the exception, as well as the type of Error that is passed.
As of writing, Realm documents their errors here:
https://realm.io/docs/objc/latest/api/Enums/RLMError.html
What this means is that you can find out if your Realm file has permissions problems and react to those based on Realm passing you a RLMErrorFilePermissionDenied. Or if the file doesn't exist with RLMErrorFileNotFound.
The tricky thing I'm finding is when you get a more generic RLMErrorFileAccess, but that's for another question on Stack Overflow...

Answer 5

I had the same issue and tried too many ways to fix it. The easiest way to fix this problem is manually creation of the folder XCode cannot reach '/Users/…/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/…/data/Containers/Data/Application/…/Documents/...' as explained at https://docs.realm.io/sync/using-synced-realms/errors#unable-to-open-realm-at-path-less-than-path-greater-than-make_dir-failed-no-such-file-or-directory
Once you created this folder and run the project, XCode creates the Realm files inside this folder automatically.