kovidgoyal/kitty · warning

Failed to read from %{public}s with error: %{darwin.errno}d

Error message

Failed to read from %{public}s with error: %{darwin.errno}d

What it means

The macOS launcher failed to read a file (read_full_file returned NULL) with errno other than ENOENT/ENOTDIR; the error is logged via os_log_error and stderr. The launcher continues (returns true), so this is informational.

Source

Thrown at kitty/launcher/cmdline.c:73

    memcpy(a->buf + a->pos, arg, sz);
    a->argv[a->count++] = a->buf + a->pos;
    a->argv[a->count] = 0;
    a->pos += sz;
    a->buf[a->pos++] = 0;
    return true;
}

bool
get_argv_from(const char *filename, const char *argv0, argv_array *final_ans) {
    (void)get_config_dir;
    if (!filename || !filename[0]) return true;
    size_t src_sz;
    char *src = read_full_file(filename, &src_sz);
    if (!src) {
        if (errno == ENOENT || errno == ENOTDIR) return true;
#ifdef __APPLE__
        int saved = errno;
        os_log_error(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Failed to read from %{public}s with error: %{darwin.errno}d", filename, errno);
        errno = saved;
#endif
        fprintf(stderr, "Failed to read from %s ", filename);
        perror("with error");
        return true;
    }
    ShlexState s = {0};
    argv_array ans = {0};
    bool ok = false;
    ans.buf = malloc(src_sz + strlen(argv0) + 64);
    if (!ans.buf) goto oom;
    ans.needs_free = true;
    if (!add_to_argv(&ans, argv0, strlen(argv0))) goto oom;
    if (!alloc_shlex_state(&s, src, src_sz, false)) goto oom;
    bool keep_going = true;
    while (keep_going) {
        ssize_t q = next_word(&s);
        switch (q) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 6d5d0c4406)

Solutions

1. Check permissions on the file named in the message
2. Read the perror text after the message for the errno reason
3. Grant kitty the needed macOS disk/file access permissions
4. Reinstall kitty if its launcher files are damaged

[ -r /path/to/file ] && echo readable

When it happens

Trigger: The kitty launcher reading a config/argv file that exists but read() fails on - EACCES, EIO, EMFILE, etc.

Common situations: File permission problems, disk/filesystem errors, or macOS sandboxing (missing Full Disk Access) blocking the launcher's files.

Related errors

• with error
• This must be run as kitten desktop-ui
• Must be run as kitten diff
• This should be run as kitten dnd
• Should be run as kitten hints

AI-assisted analysis of kovidgoyal/kitty@6d5d0c4406 (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2bea0e7405f29d75. Report an issue: GitHub.