GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Linux
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

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Some of my brush folders are broken. Can anyone tell me if they can be fixed? This happened last night when they wouldn't transfer over from my alternate brush folder. I am using ofnuts brush set script addon.
The broken brush shows up in this screen shot below and the message I get when I try to open it.

Could be that Molly's is a typo. Your folder doesn't have an apostrophe between Molly and the s, while the path has one. Remove the apostrophe from your path to the folder.

Thanks, but this happened in about six of my folders and the folder shows up but all they had in them was a broken file, instead of the whole folder. I have never seen this before. I did remove the apostrophe and that didn't work either. I didn't want to lose those brushes especial because they are ones I have collected over the years and ones I made and got from GC.
This shows the folder, and inside should be all my Mollys brushes but there is just the one broken file in there

Thanks conbagui... I didn't get anywhere there but maybe I could try the Fedora forum. The codes and installs have different instructions

I can only offer a few suggestions, not guaranteed solutions:

Other than your home directory, Gimp uses another directory for brushes:

usr/share/gimp/

Might be worth checking there first.

My second suggestion is to do a full system file search, that should determine if your brushes still exist somewhere. I typically use pfind, so I don't know if you have a file searcher. But typically most Linux OS's should have one by default.

Failing that, then it sounds like your files got somehow wiped in the transfer process. For that you could try out some file recovery software such as this:

http://extundelete.sourceforge.net/

Thanks you David-C... I will look at this

It looks like your files are locked so it's a permission issue. Sign into your file manager as admin (root) to change access.

odin i can't find file manager in fedora MATE desktop

In MATE DE, login into a terminal session as root and input: caja <enter>

That will bring up your file manager as root.

ok thanks don't know what I will do when I get there though
This is what came up.

You will need t browse to

File System/Home/Molly/gimp-2.8

Then to your brushes folder with the locked files. You can then right click on the file, select properties, then permissions tab. From there, you can change the files permissions to read/write.

They are already at read and write
This is what is says for file type... link (broken) (inode/symlink)

It looks like you removed/renamed a directory of brushes in "brushes_storage" while it was marked active. Brushes are likely not lost (and you do backups, right?). To reset the plugin:
1) remove all the links in the directory "brushes"
2) In "brushes_storage", delete the ".active" file (since it has a leading dot, it will not be visible by default in your file explorer, you have to tell it to show hidden files).

Then you can re-activate the brushes in Gimp.

The information I gave was instructions on how to use your file manager, as root, to change the permissions on a file/folder, which is what I thought you were wanting to do.

Looking back though this thread, I see now that you are looking at a broken symbolic link. You can think of a symbolic link as a pointer to a file or folder, not the actual file or folder itself. In your case, it appears your symbolic link is pointing to a folder that no longer exists, so it's broken. A symbolic link can become broken if the file or folder the link is pointing to has been moved, deleted or renamed.

As to why you would be using symbolic links in the first place, I wouldn't know. However, to correct a broken symbolic link, you would need to restore the file or folder the link is pointing to. In your case, the symbolic link is looking for a folder named /home/molly/.gimp-2.8/brushes_storage/Molly's Brushes. To fix the link, you would need to restore that folder.

What I find odd is that you have a symbolic link pointing back to the folder the symbolic link itself resides in. (Well, minus the apostrophe. I assumed you renamed the folder and removed the apostrophe, for some reason?)

In any event, that folder does not contain any brushes, which is what I think you are assuming. Perhaps there is another folder somewhere that actually contains the brushes and the symbolic link is supposed to be pointing to it. That's about all I can tell you without knowing more about what you are trying to do here.

Run the following command in your brushes folder(s), it will list any broken symlinks. You could run it on Gimp global and user folders which might be easier. If a symlink is broken you can safely delete it (you may need root access to delete).
I don't recommend running this command system wide, only on specific groups of files and folders. The reason being the list could be too long to manage.
The Linux terminal should look like this.
cd .gimp-2.8 [enter] then add, find -L . -type l [enter]

This is the normal behavior of my add-on manager on Linux. To activate a directory of resources, it creates a soft link to it in the directory Gimp uses (much more efficient than copying the files, and safer than moving them).

Thanks, I have them all straightened around now, I did lose my one folder though. I was unable to fix or repair that one.