cube-js/cube · critical

Something wrong with downloading Cube Store before running i

Error message

Something wrong with downloading Cube Store before running it.

What it means

Thrown by CubeStoreHandler.getBinary after attempting an automatic download of the Cube Store binary: even though downloadBinaryFromRelease() resolved, the expected executable at <cubestore>/downloaded/latest/bin/cubestored[.exe] still does not exist on disk. It is a sanity check indicating the download-or-extract step silently failed to produce the binary (or wrote it elsewhere).

Source

Thrown at rust/cubestore/js-wrapper/src/process.ts:128

  // Promise that works as mutex, but can be rejected
  protected cubeStoreStarting: Promise<ChildProcess> | null = null;

  // Flag when release was requested, in this state, we skip restart on exit
  protected releaseRequested: boolean = false;

  public constructor(
    protected readonly config: Readonly<CubeStoreHandlerOptions>
  ) {}

  protected async getBinary() {
    const pathToExecutable = getBinaryPath();

    if (!fs.existsSync(pathToExecutable)) {
      await downloadBinaryFromRelease();

      if (!fs.existsSync(pathToExecutable)) {
        throw new Error('Something wrong with downloading Cube Store before running it.');
      }
    }

    return pathToExecutable;
  }

  public async acquire() {
    if (this.cubeStore) {
      return this.cubeStore;
    }

    if (this.cubeStoreStarting) {
      return this.cubeStoreStarting;
    }

    const onExit = (code: number | null) => {
      if (this.releaseRequested) {
        return;

View on GitHub (pinned to 7d981676b3)

Solutions

1. Delete the stale downloaded directory (node_modules/@cubejs-backend/cubestool/downloaded or rust/cubestore/downloaded) and re-run install/start to force a clean re-download.
2. Check filesystem permissions on the package directory; reinstall with a writable node_modules (avoid sudo/local permission mismatches; fix npm/yarn cache ownership).
3. Disable/whitelist antivirus interception of cubestored and re-download.
4. Check disk space and network/proxy settings; retry the install.
5. As a workaround, build cubestored from source and place it at <package>/downloaded/latest/bin/cubestored, or run Cube Store separately via Docker instead of the auto-download path.

Example fix

// before
rm -rf node_modules && yarn install   # may reuse a corrupt cache entry
// after
cd node_modules/@cubejs-backend/cubestool
rm -rf downloaded/latest
ls -la downloaded/latest/bin/cubestored  # verify binary exists after re-download

import fs from 'fs';
import { getBinaryPath } from '@cubejs-backend/cubestool/dist/process';
if (!fs.existsSync(getBinaryPath())) {
  console.warn('cubestored missing; will trigger download — ensure writable node_modules and no AV interference.');
}

function binaryExists(path: string): path is string {
  return fs.existsSync(path) && fs.statSync(path).size > 0;
}

try {
  await cubeStoreHandler.acquire();
} catch (e) {
  if (/Something wrong with downloading Cube Store/.test(String(e))) {
    await rmrf(path.join(cubestoolDir, 'downloaded', 'latest'));
    await cubeStoreHandler.acquire(); // clean re-download
  } else { throw e; }
}

When it happens

Trigger: acquire() -> getBinary(): fs.existsSync(getBinaryPath()) is false, downloadBinaryFromRelease() completes without throwing (e.g. download reported OK but extraction produced nothing, or a partially-failed download left no executable), and the post-download fs.existsSync check still fails.

Common situations: Antivirus/endpoint security quarantining cubestored.exe right after extraction; corrupted or interrupted tar.gz extraction into the download dir; disk-permission issues preventing write into the package's downloaded/ folder (read-only node_modules, CI caches); running in a container where the previous failed run left an empty downloaded/latest directory that confuses path resolution; network middleboxes returning HTML error pages that pass non-404 checks.

Related errors

• Stream init error
• There are no artifacts for Cube Store v${version}. Most prob
• Unable to find package.json file in current working director
• Unable to find ${name} from path: "${value}"
• Unsupported table data passed to ${this.constructor}

AI-assisted analysis of cube-js/cube@7d981676b3 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/96356db49166949b. Report an issue: GitHub.