moonD4rk/HackBrowserData · error

create temp dir

Error message

create temp dir: %w

What it means

NewSession wraps os.MkdirTemp failures with "create temp dir: %w". Every extraction run starts by creating a unique temporary directory (prefix "hbd-" under os.TempDir()) to stage copied browser files. If the OS refuses to create that directory, the session cannot start and no browser data can be extracted.

Solutions

1. Check and fix the temp environment variables (TMP/TEMP/TMPDIR) so they point to an existing, writable directory.
2. Free disk space on the volume holding the temp directory.
3. Run the tool under a user account with write permission on the temp directory.
4. As a last resort, set TMPDIR to a manually created writable directory before launching (e.g. TMPDIR=/var/tmp/hbd hbd ...).

Example fix

// before
session, err := filemanager.NewSession()
if err != nil {
    return err
}
// after
if err := os.MkdirAll(os.TempDir(), 0o700); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("temp dir unavailable: %w", err)
}
session, err := filemanager.NewSession()
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("session setup: %w", err)
}

// verify temp location is writable before calling NewSession
probe := filepath.Join(os.TempDir(), ".hbd-probe")
if err := os.WriteFile(probe, nil, 0o600); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("temp dir %s not writable: %w", os.TempDir(), err)
}
os.Remove(probe)
session, err := filemanager.NewSession()

// Go
session, err := filemanager.NewSession()
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot create session (check TMP/TEMP/TMPDIR and disk space): %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling filemanager.NewSession() when the temp directory (TMP/TEMP on Windows, /tmp on Unix) does not exist, is not writable, is full, or when the environment TMPDIR/TMP/TEMP points to an invalid path.

Common situations: Running in restricted sandboxes/containers with read-only /tmp; TMPDIR pointing at a deleted or non-existent directory; disk quota exhausted; Windows services running under accounts without a writable %TEMP%; temp cleaner processes racing the tool.

Understand the failure class

Background: mkdir permission denied (EACCES): failed to create directory errors explained — this error's family across 32 libraries.

Related errors

• close
• copy
• create output dir
• create
• dbus session

AI-assisted analysis of moonD4rk/HackBrowserData@0503d04d7a (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c39de3e8aaa03f42. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at filemanager/session.go:21

import (
	"errors"
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"runtime"
)

// Session manages temporary files for a single browser extraction run.
// It creates an isolated temp directory and provides methods to copy
// browser files into it. Call Cleanup() when done to remove all temp files.
type Session struct {
	tempDir string
}

// NewSession creates a session with a unique temporary directory.
func NewSession() (*Session, error) {
	dir, err := os.MkdirTemp("", "hbd-*")
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("create temp dir: %w", err)
	}
	return &Session{tempDir: dir}, nil
}

// TempDir returns the session's temporary directory path.
func (s *Session) TempDir() string {
	return s.tempDir
}

// Acquire copies a browser file (or directory) from src to dst.
// For regular files, it also copies SQLite WAL and SHM companion files
// if they exist. For directories (e.g. LevelDB), it copies the entire
// directory while skipping lock files.
//
// On Windows, if the normal copy fails (e.g. file locked by Chrome),
// it falls back to DuplicateHandle + FileMapping to bypass exclusive locks.
func (s *Session) Acquire(src, dst string, isDir bool) error {
	if isDir {

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