gastownhall/beads · error

failed to inspect opened directory %s: %w

Error message

failed to inspect opened directory %s: %w

What it means

After opening the directory securely, the code calls dir.Stat() on the handle to verify the opened target. This error wraps a failure of that stat — the opened directory handle could not be inspected, so the safety comparison against the original Lstat info cannot proceed.

Source

Thrown at internal/config/permissions.go:75

		return false, fmt.Errorf("refusing to chmod %s: path is a symbolic link", path)
	}
	if !info.IsDir() {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("refusing to chmod %s: path is not a directory", path)
	}
	perm := info.Mode().Perm()
	if perm&0077 == 0 {
		return false, nil // no group or world-accessible bits
	}

	dir, err := openDir(path)
	if err != nil {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("failed to open %s securely: %w", path, err)
	}
	defer func() { _ = dir.Close() }()

	openedInfo, err := dir.Stat()
	if err != nil {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("failed to inspect opened directory %s: %w", path, err)
	}
	if !openedInfo.IsDir() || !os.SameFile(info, openedInfo) {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("refusing to chmod %s: path changed during permission repair", path)
	}
	if err := dir.Chmod(BeadsDirPerm); err != nil {
		return false, fmt.Errorf("failed to chmod %s to %04o: %w", path, BeadsDirPerm, err)
	}
	return true, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

1. Re-run after checking system resource limits (ulimit -n) for fd exhaustion.
2. Retry the permission fix; the failure is usually transient.
3. As a fallback, chmod the directory directly from the shell: chmod 700 <path>.

changed, err := config.FixBeadsDirPermissions(beadsDir)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to inspect opened directory") {
    // usually transient (fd pressure / fs hiccup): retry once after freeing resources
    runtime.GC()
    changed, err = config.FixBeadsDirPermissions(beadsDir)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling FixBeadsDirPermissions where fstat on the opened directory descriptor fails — extremely rare; typically caused by the descriptor becoming invalid (close racing), fd exhaustion, or filesystem errors on exotic mounts.

Common situations: EMFILE/ENFILE (file descriptor table exhausted) so the handle is in a bad state; kernel or FUSE errors; heavily sandboxed environments blocking fstat.

Related errors

• failed to open %s securely: %w
• dolt path is not executable
• failed to create backup directory: %w
• failed to create temp file: %w
• create beads directory: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7fc7d4d27f1d38d8. Report an issue: GitHub.