plandex-ai/plandex · error

failed to apply update due to permission error; please try r

Error message

failed to apply update due to permission error; please try running your command again with 'sudo': %w

What it means

When the 'plandex' binary is found in the tar, update.Apply (github.com/inconshreveable/go-update) swaps it in place. If that fails specifically with fs.ErrPermission, the CLI returns a dedicated message advising 'sudo'. go-update needs write permission on the installed executable's path (and possibly the containing directory when it renames the file into place).

Source

Thrown at app/cli/upgrade.go:150

	}
	defer gzr.Close()

	tarReader := tar.NewReader(gzr)
	for {
		header, err := tarReader.Next()
		if err == io.EOF {
			break // End of archive
		}
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("failed to read tar header: %w", err)
		}

		// Check if the current file is the binary
		if header.Typeflag == tar.TypeReg && (header.Name == "plandex" || header.Name == "plandex.exe") {
			err = update.Apply(tarReader, update.Options{})
			if err != nil {
				if errors.Is(err, fs.ErrPermission) {
					return fmt.Errorf("failed to apply update due to permission error; please try running your command again with 'sudo': %w", err)
				}
				return fmt.Errorf("failed to apply update: %w", err)
			}
			break
		}
	}

	return nil
}

func restartPlandex() {
	exe, err := os.Executable()
	if err != nil {
		term.OutputErrorAndExit("Failed to determine executable path: %v", err)
	}

	cmd := exec.Command(exe, os.Args[1:]...)
	cmd.Stdin = os.Stdin

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Re-run the upgrade command with sudo: sudo plandex (then accept the upgrade prompt).
2. Move the binary to a user-writable location, e.g. ~/.local/bin, and update PATH.
3. chown the binary to your user: sudo chown $(whoami) $(which plandex).
4. Reinstall via the official install script into a user-owned prefix.

Example fix

// before: user-writable install avoids the error
$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/plandex  # root-owned, upgrade fails
// after
$ sudo chown $(whoami) /usr/local/bin/plandex
$ # or relocate:
$ mv /usr/local/bin/plandex ~/.local/bin/ && export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

exe, _ := os.Executable()
fi, err := os.Stat(exe)
if err == nil {
	if unix.Access(exe, unix.W_OK) != nil || fi.Mode().Perm()&0200 == 0 {
		fmt.Println("Binary not writable by current user; run with sudo or reinstall to a user-owned path")
	}
}

err = update.Apply(tarReader, update.Options{})
if err != nil {
	if errors.Is(err, fs.ErrPermission) {
		fmt.Println("Permission denied replacing binary. Re-run with sudo, or reinstall to ~/.local/bin")
		return
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: update.Apply fails with a permission error because the installed plandex binary (e.g. /usr/local/bin/plandex) is owned by root or the user lacks write access to it or its directory.

Common situations: plandex was originally installed with sudo into /usr/local/bin; system-managed install paths; non-root user running the self-upgrade.

Understand the failure class

Background: Permission denied / not authorized / 403 Forbidden: access-control rejections when the caller lacks the required role, grant, or ownership — this error's family across 18 libraries.

Related errors

• error setting auth: %v
• error writing auth: %v
• error reading accounts.json: %v
• error walking directory: %s
• error checking for .plandexignore file: %s

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d0599571879c94fa. Report an issue: GitHub.