kovidgoyal/kitty · error

Failed to stat %s with error: %w

Error message

Failed to stat %s with error: %w

What it means

After successfully opening the file, unix.Fstat on its descriptor failed. This is rare because the fd is already open — it usually indicates the filesystem can't stat the open inode (broken NFS/FUSE mount, fd closed underneath) or an fd inheritance edge case rather than a bad path.

Source

Thrown at tools/cmd/edit_in_kitty/main.go:188

		if kill_if_signaled {
			lp.KillIfSignalled()
			return
		}
		return 1, &tui.KilledBySignal{Msg: fmt.Sprint("Killed by signal: ", ds), SignalName: ds}
	}
	return
}

func edit_in_kitty(path string, opts *Options) (exit_code int, err error) {
	read_file, err := os.Open(path)
	if err != nil {
		return 1, fmt.Errorf("Failed to open %s for reading with error: %w", path, err)
	}
	defer read_file.Close()
	var s unix.Stat_t
	err = unix.Fstat(int(read_file.Fd()), &s)
	if err != nil {
		return 1, fmt.Errorf("Failed to stat %s with error: %w", path, err)
	}
	if s.Size > int64(opts.MaxFileSize)*1024*1024 {
		return 1, fmt.Errorf("File size %s is too large for performant editing", humanize.Bytes(uint64(s.Size)))
	}

	file_data, err := io.ReadAll(read_file)
	if err != nil {
		return 1, fmt.Errorf("Failed to read from %s with error: %w", path, err)
	}
	read_file.Close()
	data := strings.Builder{}
	data.Grow(len(file_data) * 4)

	add := func(key, val string) {
		if data.Len() > 0 {
			data.WriteString(",")
		}
		data.WriteString(key)

View on GitHub (pinned to 6d5d0c4406)

Solutions

1. Retry after remounting/reconnecting the network or FUSE filesystem
2. Check mount health: mount | grep <fs>, df <path>
3. If it reproduces on a specific file, stat it manually: stat <path> to see the kernel error
4. Avoid editing files on flaky network mounts; copy locally first

Example fix

# before
edit-in-kitty /mnt/nfs-shared/big.txt   # ESTALE
# after
cp /mnt/nfs-shared/big.txt /tmp/ && edit-in-kitty /tmp/big.txt

// Check mount health before editing files on network filesystems
if out, err := exec.Command("findmnt", "-n", "-o", "TARGET", path).Output(); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("path %s has no healthy mount", path)
}

if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "Failed to stat") {
    // open succeeded but inode gone: retry once, then copy file locally
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling edit_in_kitty on a file whose backing filesystem goes away between open and fstat (network filesystem disconnect, FUSE daemon crash), or on a pseudo-file where fstat returns an error despite open succeeding.

Common situations: Editing files on stale NFS mounts, sshfs/FUSE mounts that dropped, or special files under /proc or /sys with odd stat semantics.

Related errors

• Failed to open %s for reading with error: %w
• Failed to read from %s with error: %w
• %s is not readable and writeable
• Failed to get the current working directory with error: %w
• resolving base symlinks: %w

AI-assisted analysis of kovidgoyal/kitty@6d5d0c4406 (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e78fc4b43937abb7. Report an issue: GitHub.