Read-only: rollback journal prevents read

Category: Read-OnlyVersions: 3.7.8+

🔴 Production Risk Error

High — database is inaccessible until journal is processed.

What this means

SQLITE_READONLY_ROLLBACK (776) is returned when a read-only database has a hot journal that needs to be rolled back, but the connection cannot write the journal file to perform the rollback.

Why it happens

1Crash left a hot journal (-journal file) alongside the read-only database.
2Read-only connection cannot roll back the journal.

How to reproduce

Read-only access to a database with an orphaned rollback journal.

trigger — this will ERROR

# A -journal file exists but db is opened read-only
# SQLITE_READONLY_ROLLBACK prevents reads until journal is cleared

sqlite3.OperationalError: attempt to write a readonly database

Fix 1

Why this works

Open the database read-write briefly so SQLite can roll back the hot journal, then close it.

Fix 2

Why this works

Manually delete the -journal file if certain no write transaction was in progress.

What not to do

✗

Why it's wrong:

Sources

📚 Official docs: https://www.sqlite.org/rescode.html#readonly_rollback

🔧 Source ref: sqlite3.h — SQLITE_READONLY_ROLLBACK = 776

📖 Further reading: SQLite journaling modes

Confidence assessment

⚠️ MEDIUM confidence

Stable.