crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

couldn't find custom scenario '%s' in the following location

Error message

couldn't find custom scenario '%s' in the following location: %+v

What it means

installScenarioCustom looks for a custom scenario by name in each directory of t.CustomItemsLocation; if none contains it, this error is returned. The test referenced a custom scenario that isn't present in any of the configured custom locations and isn't in the hub index either.

Source

Thrown at pkg/hubtest/scenario.go:80

		return false, fmt.Errorf("unable to copy scenario from '%s' to '%s': %w", customScenarioPath, scenarioFileDest, err)
	}

	return true, nil
}

func (t *HubTestItem) installScenarioCustom(scenario string) error {
	for _, customPath := range t.CustomItemsLocation {
		found, err := t.installScenarioCustomFrom(scenario, customPath)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		if found {
			return nil
		}
	}

	return fmt.Errorf("couldn't find custom scenario '%s' in the following location: %+v", scenario, t.CustomItemsLocation)
}

func (t *HubTestItem) installScenario(name string) error {
	if item := t.HubIndex.GetItem(cwhub.SCENARIOS, name); item != nil {
		return t.installScenarioItem(item)
	}

	return t.installScenarioCustom(name)
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Check the exact file name (with .yaml extension) against the requested scenario name.
2. Place the custom scenario in one of the directories listed in the error's location output.
3. Add the scenario's directory to CustomItemsLocation.
4. If it's a hub scenario instead, install it via cscli so it resolves through the hub index.

Example fix

// before
CustomItemsLocation: ["./custom-parsers"] // scenario is in ./custom-scenarios
// after
CustomItemsLocation: ["./custom-parsers", "./custom-scenarios"]

found := false
for _, loc := range item.CustomItemsLocation {
	if _, err := os.Stat(filepath.Join(loc, scenario+".yaml")); err == nil {
		found = true
		break
	}
}
if !found {
	// fail fast with a clear message before calling installScenario
}

if err := t.installScenario(name); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "couldn't find custom scenario") {
		return fmt.Errorf("scenario %q not in hub or custom locations %v", name, t.CustomItemsLocation)
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: installScenario is called with a name not found in the hub index, so installScenarioCustom is invoked, and no file matching the name exists in any CustomItemsLocation directory.

Common situations: Typo in the scenario name in test config; custom scenario stored outside the directories registered in CustomItemsLocation; scenario file renamed/deleted; running tests before cloning/copying the custom scenario into place.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

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AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7f19db8f093a3f0f. Report an issue: GitHub.