What causes "failed to rollback: %s" in plandex-ai/plandex?

Read the appended child errors in the message — they identify which specific revert/remove operation failed.

failed to rollback: %s

Error message

failed to rollback: %s

What it means

This is Rollback's aggregate top-level error. Rollback fans out goroutines that revert files, remove files, and prune new project paths, collecting their results from errCh. If any worker reported an error, Rollback returns 'failed to rollback: %s' with all collected errors, after still attempting every worker.

Source

Thrown at app/cli/lib/apply.go:814

		for range toRemove {
			err := <-pathsErrCh
			if err != nil {
				errCh <- fmt.Errorf("failed to remove %s: %s", toRemove, err.Error())
				return
			}
		}
		errCh <- nil
	}()

	errs := []error{}
	for i := 0; i < numRoutines; i++ {
		err := <-errCh
		if err != nil {
			errs = append(errs, err)
		}
	}
	if len(errs) > 0 {
		return fmt.Errorf("failed to rollback: %s", errs)
	}
	if msg {
		fmt.Println("🚫 Rolled back all changes")
	}
	return nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

Read the appended child errors in the message — they identify which specific revert/remove operation failed.
Fix the specific child error first (permissions, missing dirs, disk space).
Check that no other process is modifying the project tree during rollback.
Re-run Rollback after fixing; it is idempotent for paths that no longer exist if child errors are treated as non-fatal.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// pre-check before rollback
if _, err := os.Stat(fs.ProjectRoot); err != nil {
	return err
}
// check writable tree
func writable(dir string) error { f, err := os.CreateTemp(dir, ".chk"); if err != nil { return err }; os.Remove(f.Name()); return nil }

Try / catch

if err := Rollback(plan, true); err != nil {
	var aggs []error
	fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "rollback failed:", err)
	// parse child errors, fix root cause, re-run rollback
}

Prevention

Snapshot/backup the tree before applying so rollback is always possible.
Run apply/rollback with the same user that owns the files.
Quiesce other processes touching the project tree.
Fix reported child errors before retrying — the aggregate lists them all.

When it happens

Trigger: Rollback() is called (directly or via handleApplyScript/execApplyScript) and at least one worker error was received on errCh — e.g. a revert write failed, a removal failed, or GetProjectPaths failed. The message is the aggregation of those child errors.

Common situations: Any of the underlying IO problems from errors 110-113; the rolled-back tree was concurrently modified; running without sufficient filesystem permissions; disk issues during a large rollback.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/acf685687adeaa9c. Report an issue: GitHub.