OperationalError from SQlite that indicates a permissions problem.

beets/dbcore/db.py

@@ -32,6 +32,10 @@
 from .query import MatchQuery, NullSort, TrueQuery
 import six
 
+class AccessFileError(Exception):
+    """UI exception. Commands should throw this in order to display
+    nonrecoverable errors to the user.
+    """
 
 class FormattedMapping(collections.Mapping):
     """A `dict`-like formatted view of a model.
@@ -680,14 +684,17 @@ def mutate(self, statement, subvals=()):
         """Execute an SQL statement with substitution values and return
         the row ID of the last affected row.
         """
-        cursor = self.db._connection().execute(statement, subvals)
-        return cursor.lastrowid
+        try:
+            cursor = self.db._connection().execute(statement, subvals)
+            return cursor.lastrowid
+        except sqlite3.OperationalError as e:
+            raise AccessFileError("unable to open database file. It might be a permissions problem")
+
 
     def script(self, statements):
         """Execute a string containing multiple SQL statements."""
         self.db._connection().executescript(statements)
 
-
 class Database(object):
     """A container for Model objects that wraps an SQLite database as
     the backend.

beets/ui/__init__.py

@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@
 from beets.util import confit, as_string
 from beets.autotag import mb
 from beets.dbcore import query as db_query
+from beets.dbcore import db
 import six
 
 # On Windows platforms, use colorama to support "ANSI" terminal colors.
@@ -1247,3 +1248,6 @@ def main(args=None):
     except KeyboardInterrupt:
         # Silently ignore ^C except in verbose mode.
         log.debug(u'{}', traceback.format_exc())
+    except db.AccessFileError as exc:
+        log.error(u'{0}',exc)
+        sys.exit(1)