hyperledger/fabric · error

error while deleting the dir: %s

Error message

error while deleting the dir: %s

What it means

initSnapshotDir wraps the os.RemoveAll error for the in-progress snapshots directory (SnapshotsTempDirPath under the configured root). Before serving snapshots, Fabric clears any stale in-progress snapshot data; a failed delete (permissions, busy mount, I/O error) produces this wrapped error.

Source

Thrown at core/ledger/kvledger/kv_ledger_provider.go:258

	)
	return err
}

func (p *Provider) initLedgerStatistics() {
	p.stats = newStats(p.initializer.MetricsProvider)
}

func (p *Provider) initSnapshotDir() error {
	snapshotsRootDir := p.initializer.Config.SnapshotsConfig.RootDir
	if !filepath.IsAbs(snapshotsRootDir) {
		return errors.Errorf("invalid path: %s. The path for the snapshot dir is expected to be an absolute path", snapshotsRootDir)
	}

	inProgressSnapshotsPath := SnapshotsTempDirPath(snapshotsRootDir)
	completedSnapshotsPath := CompletedSnapshotsPath(snapshotsRootDir)

	if err := os.RemoveAll(inProgressSnapshotsPath); err != nil {
		return errors.Wrapf(err, "error while deleting the dir: %s", inProgressSnapshotsPath)
	}
	if err := os.MkdirAll(inProgressSnapshotsPath, 0o755); err != nil {
		return errors.Wrapf(err, "error while creating the dir: %s, ensure peer has write access to configured ledger.snapshots.rootDir directory", inProgressSnapshotsPath)
	}
	if err := os.MkdirAll(completedSnapshotsPath, 0o755); err != nil {
		return errors.Wrapf(err, "error while creating the dir: %s, ensure peer has write access to configured ledger.snapshots.rootDir directory", completedSnapshotsPath)
	}
	return fileutil.SyncDir(snapshotsRootDir)
}

// CreateFromGenesisBlock implements the corresponding method from interface ledger.PeerLedgerProvider
// This function creates a new ledger and commits the genesis block. If a failure happens during this
// process, the partially created ledger is deleted
func (p *Provider) CreateFromGenesisBlock(genesisBlock *common.Block) (ledger.PeerLedger, error) {
	ledgerID, err := protoutil.GetChannelIDFromBlock(genesisBlock)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Check the wrapped underlying error in the peer log (permission denied vs read-only vs I/O)
2. Fix ownership/permissions: chown/chmod the snapshots rootDir for the peer's OS user
3. Remount the volume read-write if it is mounted read-only
4. Manually remove <rootDir>/inProgressSnapshots (or completedSnapshots) and restart

Example fix

// before: error while deleting the dir: /var/hyperledger/production/snapshots/inProgressSnapshots: permission denied
// after:
# chown -R fabric:fabric /var/hyperledger/production/snapshots
# peer node start

inProgress := filepath.Join(rootDir, "inProgressSnapshots")
if info, err := os.Stat(inProgress); err == nil && info.IsDir() {
    if err := os.Chmod(inProgress, 0o755); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("cannot manage snapshots dir %s: %v", inProgress, err)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Peer startup (NewProvider -> initSnapshotDir) when os.RemoveAll(<rootDir>/inProgressSnapshots) fails, e.g. read-only mount, root-owned files from a previous run as another user, or filesystem I/O error.

Common situations: Container volume mounted read-only, snapshots dir created by root but peer now runs as non-root user, permission-changed directories, or corrupted filesystem.

Related errors

• error while creating the dir: %s, ensure peer has write acce
• error while reading bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file
• failed to read bootstrappingSnapshotInfo file under blocksto
• failed reading directory %s
• error while creating temp dir [%s]

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fb1ea92e55835748. Report an issue: GitHub.