server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of

Error message

server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of logFilePath

What it means

NewDoltServer resolves the optional logFilePath to an absolute path before opening it, so the dolt sql-server child writes its log to a stable location. filepath.Abs only fails when the process cwd cannot be determined (deleted cwd or getwd failure) and logFilePath was relative. This branch runs only when logFilePath is non-empty.

Source

Thrown at internal/storage/dbproxy/server/doltserver.go:93

		return nil, errors.New("server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of doltBinExec")
	}
	absRootDir, err := filepath.Abs(rootDir)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.New("server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of rootDir")
	}
	absConfigPath, err := filepath.Abs(configPath)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.New("server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of configPath")
	}
	cfg, err := servercfg.YamlConfigFromFile(filesys.LocalFS, configPath)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("server: NewDoltServer: parse config %q: %w", configPath, err)
	}
	var logFile *os.File
	if logFilePath != "" {
		absLogFilePath, err := filepath.Abs(logFilePath)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, errors.New("server: NewDoltServer: failed to determine absolute path of logFilePath")
		}
		logFile, err = os.OpenFile(absLogFilePath, os.O_CREATE|os.O_APPEND|os.O_WRONLY, 0o600) //nolint:gosec // logFilePath is caller-derived, not user-request input
		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("server: NewDoltServer: open log %q: %w", logFilePath, err)
		}
	}
	if keepAlivePeriod == 0 {
		keepAlivePeriod = defaultKeepAlivePeriod
	}
	sum := sha256.Sum256([]byte(absRootDir))
	return &DoltServer{
		id:              hex.EncodeToString(sum[:]),
		doltBinExec:     absDoltBinExec,
		rootDir:         absRootDir,
		configPath:      absConfigPath,
		database:        database,
		config:          cfg,
		keepAlivePeriod: keepAlivePeriod,

View on GitHub (pinned to 71377f2769)

Solutions

Pass an absolute logFilePath, or pass "" to disable file logging if a log file is not needed
Resolve the log path once at startup with filepath.Abs while the cwd is still valid
Restart the process from an existing working directory

Example fix

// before
srv, err := server.NewDoltServer(bin, root, cfg, "logs/dolt.log", 0, db)
// after
absLog, err := filepath.Abs("logs/dolt.log")
if err != nil { return err }
srv, err := server.NewDoltServer(bin, root, cfg, absLog, 0, db)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

var absLog string
if logFilePath != "" {
    absLog, err = filepath.Abs(logFilePath)
    if err != nil { return fmt.Errorf("cannot resolve log path (cwd invalid?): %w", err) }
    if err := os.MkdirAll(filepath.Dir(absLog), 0o755); err != nil { return err }
}

Prevention

Resolve the log path at startup and create its parent directory before opening
Pass "" explicitly when file logging is not wanted
Keep logs in a stable, non-ephemeral directory

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a non-empty relative logFilePath (e.g. ".beads/dolt.log") to NewDoltServer while os.Getwd() fails because the working directory was deleted or is inaccessible. Passing "" (disable file logging) never reaches this code.

Common situations: Daemons whose cwd was removed by cleanup jobs; processes started in a tmp directory that was wiped; environments where getwd returns errors due to permissions on the cwd.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gastownhall/beads@71377f2769 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/033d5a99adc922a4. Report an issue: GitHub.