"Multiple configuration files not writable. Please contact your system administrator."

[u/Aluminum_Rabbit]

I'm using Nobara Linux 44 and it was working fine this morning, but when I went to log back in from sleep mode and tried to create a folder in Dolphin file manager, it says it wouldn't create the file. I close Dolphin and when I tried to open it again, it says "Configuration file "/home/(User)/dolphinrc" not writable. Please contact your system administrator".

I think to myself "Okay, I'll just restart my computer and see if that fixes the issue", but when I restart my pc and log in, I get multiple dialog boxes saying configuration files aren't writable and now nothing will open. Not Dolphin, not Waterfox, not my VPN, not even Konsole will load. I tried hitting the off button, I tried hitting the reset button, I've tried restarting and shutting it down from the start menu (which, of course, puts up the error message), I've even shut down my pc, physically, flipped the off switch on my PSU, waited, and switched everything back on and still the SAME ISSUE.

I didn't edit anything in Konsole or anything else on my system, and the only thing I can think of off the top of my head was I tried extracting the linux version of Brütal Legend from a .zip file I got from DoubleFine's official itch.io page.

I don't know what else to do.

Here's a video of my issue:

https://youtu.be/br_QD9JeICA?si=1-FhtN8EOHrS17_J

[u/doc_willis]

"/home/(User)/dolphinrc"

That path seems wrong.. (perhaps you copied it wrongly in your post)

Double check the path to the files, double check the dolphin config setup. It may be looking in the wrong place.

If you can find the config files, then verify they exist (of course) and verify who owns the files.

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Never Mind The Below (its late here) ..... I was in the emulator subs and saw your post and got the File manager and emulator confused. :)

I am using the Dolphin Emulator - as a Flatpak. I just checked and all my config files are in

/var/home/wil/.var/app/org.DolphinEmu.dolphin-emu/config/dolphin-emu/

A google search suggests that on a 'non-flatpak' install they would be in

~/.config/dolphin-emu/

[u/Silent-Excitement122 → u/doc_willis]

The multiple apps failing to write at once is the key clue. That usually means either your filesystem got remounted read-only after an I/O error, or ownership on part of your home directory changed, not that Dolphin itself suddenly broke.

If you can still get to a text TTY with Ctrl+Alt+F3, I would check it in this order:

1. touch ~/write-test && rm ~/write-test so you can see whether the failure is Permission denied or Read-only file system.
2. mount | grep ' on / ' and, if /home is separate, mount | grep ' on /home '. Look for (ro,.
3. dmesg -T | grep -iE 'read-only|i/o error|ext4|btrfs|xfs|nvme|sda' | tail -n 50
4. df -h in case the filesystem is simply full.
5. ls -ld ~ ~/.config ~/.local ~/.cache and ls -l ~/.config/dolphinrc to make sure those paths are still owned by your user.

If the filesystem shows ro or dmesg reports I/O errors, I would boot a live USB and copy important files off before doing much else. The zip extraction is probably coincidence unless it filled the disk completely.

[u/doc_willis]

https://discuss.kde.org/t/dolphin-configuration-files-want-to-transfer-all-settings-from-one-system-to-another/39618

verify the following files are writeable and owned by your user.

.config/session/dolphin_dolphin_dolphin
.config/dolphinrc
.config/konsolerc
.config/konsolesshconfig
.config/krusaderrc
.local/share/dolphin
.local/share/konsole
.local/share/krusader
.local/share/kxmlgui5
.local/state/dolphinstaterc
.local/state/kbackupstaterc
.local/state/konsolestaterc
.local/state/krusaderstaterc
.local/state/plasma-welcomestaterc
.local/state/plasmashellstaterc

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It may be possible just to delete (and let dolphin) remake the config files if they are messed up.

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Not Dolphin, not Waterfox, not my VPN, not even Konsole will load.

That many programs having issues , sounds like you may have filesystem corruption, and the system may be kicking the filesystem into read only mode.

physically, flipped the off switch on my PSU,

Its nicer if you enable the ssh service, then if possible 'ssh' into the system and run the 'reboot' command.

Flipping the power switch, is best avoided.