Account for situations where a state file does not (yet) exist

mvw-dl.py

@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ JSONType = t.Union[str, int, float, bool, None, t.Dict[str, t.Any], t.List[t.Any
 # 3: No search results to download
 # 4: State file already exists, has more than 0 bytes size but doesn't contain usable JSON
 # 5: State file lock cannot be acquired within file_lock_timeout
+# 6: Unable to create state directory
 
 
 class CONST(object):
@@ -461,6 +462,13 @@ def get_state_file_abs_path(
         config_obj: configparser.ConfigParser()) -> str:
 
     state_dir = config_obj.get(section_name, "state_files_dir")
+    try:
+        os.makedirs(state_dir, exist_ok=True)
+    except OSError:
+        log.error(f"Unable to create '[{section}]' state directory '{state_dir}'. "
+                  f"We're not going to be able to log state information. Exiting 6 ...")
+        sys.exit(6)
+    else:
         state_file = \
             config_obj.get(section_name, "state_file_name_prefix") + \
             section_name + \
@@ -534,7 +542,8 @@ def log_successful_download(
 
     with lock:
         state_file_none_or_valid_json(state_file_abs_path)
-        with open(state_file_abs_path, "r+", encoding="utf-8") as state_file:
+        state_file_open_mode = "r+" if os.path.exists(state_file_abs_path) else "w+"
+        with open(state_file_abs_path, state_file_open_mode, encoding="utf-8") as state_file:
             try:
                 json_state = json.load(state_file)
             except json.JSONDecodeError:
@@ -651,7 +660,7 @@ def get_content_length(
 
 def get_json_state(
         state_file_abs_path: str) -> json.loads:
-
+    try:
         with open(state_file_abs_path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as state_file:
             try:
                 json_state = json.load(state_file)
@@ -659,6 +668,9 @@ def get_json_state(
                 return []
             else:
                 return json_state
+    except FileNotFoundError:
+        log.debug(f"State file does not exist (yet), assuming no previous downloads have ever happened ...")
+        return []
 
 
 def is_already_downloaded(