potential fix

i cannot imagine how the while loop would go on forever, but hard limits
are nice

common/utils.py

@@ -23,7 +23,6 @@ import datetime
 import time
 
 
-
 def get_timestamp():
     return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time()).strftime("%Y.%m.%d-%H:%M:%S")
 
@@ -93,13 +92,17 @@ def printerr(*args, **kwargs):
 def removeNonAlphabetic(s):
     return "".join([i for i in s if i.isalpha()])
 
-import pathlib
-import os
 
-def can_create_path(path_str : str):
+import os
+import pathlib
+
+
+def can_create_path(path_str: str):
     path = pathlib.Path(path_str).absolute().resolve()
 
-    while True: # this looks dangerours, but it actually is not
+    tries = 0
+    maximum_tries = 1000
+    while True:
         if path.exists():
             if os.access(path, os.W_OK):
                 return True
@@ -111,7 +114,11 @@ def can_create_path(path_str : str):
             return False
 
         path = path.parent
-
+        tries += 1
+        if tries > maximum_tries:
+            # always, always break out of while loops eventually
+            # IF you don't want to be here forever
+            break
 
 
 # # Evaluate a bezier curve for the parameter 0<=t<=1 along its length