Billionmail/BillionMail · error

source file/directory does not exist

Error message

source file/directory does not exist: %s

What it means

Before adding each source to the rar command's argument list, Compress stats the absolute source path. If os.Stat fails (missing file/directory or a permission error surfaced as ENOENT), it reports the original source string in this error and aborts the whole compression.

Solutions

1. Check each source exists with os.Stat before calling Compress and fix/omit missing entries
2. Use absolute paths (filepath.Abs) instead of relying on the process working directory
3. Verify symlinks resolve to existing targets
4. Fix path casing/encoding if the archive job runs on a case-sensitive filesystem

Example fix

// before
err := r.Compress("out.rar", "logs/app.log") // cwd differs in service
// after
src, _ := filepath.Abs("logs/app.log")
if _, err := os.Stat(src); err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
err := r.Compress("out.rar", src)

for _, src := range srcList {
	abs, err := filepath.Abs(src)
	if err != nil { return err }
	if _, err := os.Stat(abs); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("source missing: %s", src)
	}
}

if err := r.Compress(dst, srcList...); err != nil {
	var missing string
	if _, e := fmt.Sscanf(err.Error(), "source file/directory does not exist: %s", &missing); e == nil {
		log.Printf("skipping job, missing source: %s", missing)
	}
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling RarUnpacker.Compress(dst, srcList...) where any entry in srcList does not exist at the given path — typo'd path, file deleted between listing and compression, wrong working directory for a relative path, or a symlink to a missing target.

Common situations: Relative paths used with a different cwd in a daemon vs. shell; temp files cleaned up before compression; case-sensitivity mismatch (Windows-built path on Linux).

Related errors

• rar file was not created successfully
• disk quota exceeded
• illegal file path:
• rar command not found, please install it first
• rar compression failed

AI-assisted analysis of Billionmail/BillionMail@fc36c76c05 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6d8ea03e9f2fc47a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at core/internal/service/compress/rar.go:190

		return err
	}

	// prepare command arguments
	args := []string{"a", "-ep1", "-r"}

	// add destination file
	args = append(args, dstAbs)

	// validate each source and add it to command
	for _, src := range srcList {
		srcAbs, err := filepath.Abs(src)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		// make sure source exists
		if _, err := os.Stat(srcAbs); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("source file/directory does not exist: %s", src)
		}

		// add source to arguments
		args = append(args, srcAbs)
	}

	// create command
	cmd := exec.Command("rar", args...)

	// run command
	output, err := cmd.CombinedOutput()
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("rar compression failed: %s - %s", err, string(output))
	}

	// verify the file was created
	if _, err := os.Stat(dstAbs); err != nil {
		return errors.New("rar file was not created successfully")

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