plandex-ai/plandex · error

error writing account credentials: %v

Error message

error writing account credentials: %v

What it means

SetAccountCredentials writes the marshalled creds.json with os.WriteFile using 0600 permissions. This error wraps the write failure — the marshalled credential bytes could not be persisted to disk, so the in-memory cache is not updated and callers can't rely on stored credentials.

Source

Thrown at app/cli/lib/model_credentials.go:583

var cachedAccountCredentials *types.AccountCredentials

func SetAccountCredentials(creds *types.AccountCredentials) error {
	if auth.Current == nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("no authenticated user")
	}
	dir := filepath.Join(fs.HomePlandexDir, auth.Current.UserId, auth.Current.OrgId)
	err := os.MkdirAll(dir, 0700)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error creating account credentials directory: %v", err)
	}
	path := filepath.Join(dir, "creds.json")
	bytes, err := json.MarshalIndent(creds, "", "  ")
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error marshalling account credentials: %v", err)
	}
	err = os.WriteFile(path, bytes, 0600)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error writing account credentials: %v", err)
	}

	cachedAccountCredentials = creds

	return nil
}

func GetAccountCredentials() (*types.AccountCredentials, error) {
	if cachedAccountCredentials != nil {
		return cachedAccountCredentials, nil
	}

	if auth.Current == nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("no authenticated user")
	}
	path := filepath.Join(fs.HomePlandexDir, auth.Current.UserId, auth.Current.OrgId, "creds.json")

	bytes, err := os.ReadFile(path)

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Check permissions on creds.json from the wrapped error path; chmod 0600 or remove the stale file.
2. If a directory named creds.json exists, remove it.
3. Verify disk space/quota (df -h) and that the volume is writable.
4. Re-run the connect/refresh flow after fixing the filesystem issue.

Example fix

// before: blind write
err = os.WriteFile(path, bytes, 0600)
// after: caller-side check
if info, statErr := os.Stat(path); statErr == nil && info.IsDir() {
    return fmt.Errorf("%s is a directory; remove it to store credentials", path)
}

if info, err := os.Stat(path); err == nil {
    if info.IsDir() {
        return fmt.Errorf("%s is a directory; remove it to store credentials", path)
    }
    if info.Mode().Perm()&0200 == 0 {
        return fmt.Errorf("%s is not writable", path)
    }
}

if err := SetAccountCredentials(creds); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "writing account credentials") {
        return fmt.Errorf("cannot write creds.json — check permissions/disk space at the reported path: %w", err)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: os.WriteFile fails on <HomePlandexDir>/<UserId>/<OrgId>/creds.json: permission denied, path is a directory, disk full, read-only filesystem, or quota exceeded.

Common situations: creds.json exists but is owned by another user or read-only; an earlier crash left a directory named creds.json; antivirus/EDR blocking writes to credential files; disk quota exceeded.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to write file", "Could not save figure", "Error saving remote file" — file write failed: causes and fixes across languages and libraries — this error's family across 38 libraries.

Related errors

• error creating account credentials directory: %v
• error reading settings-v2.json: %v
• error creating convo message descriptions dir: %v
• error creating results dir: %v
• error creating applies dir: %v

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/47882f21d2a1f40e. Report an issue: GitHub.