reflex-dev/reflex · error · SystemExit

Failed to create temp directory for download: {ose}

Error message

Failed to create temp directory for download: {ose}

What it means

Raised by `create_config_init_app_from_remote_template` when `tempfile.mkdtemp()` fails with an OSError while preparing a scratch directory for the template zip download. The `raise SystemExit(1) from None` aborts the `reflex init` flow; the underlying OSError text is included in the log line.

Source

Thrown at reflex/utils/templates.py:132

def create_config_init_app_from_remote_template(app_name: str, template_url: str):
    """Create new rxconfig and initialize app using a remote template.

    Args:
        app_name: The name of the app.
        template_url: The path to the template source code as a zip file.

    Raises:
        SystemExit: If any download, file operations fail or unexpected zip file format.

    """
    import httpx

    # Create a temp directory for the zip download.
    try:
        temp_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
    except OSError as ose:
        logger.error(f"Failed to create temp directory for download: {ose}")
        raise SystemExit(1) from None

    # Use httpx GET with redirects to download the zip file.
    zip_file_path: Path = Path(temp_dir) / "template.zip"
    try:
        # Note: following redirects can be risky. We only allow this for reflex built templates at the moment.
        response = net.get(template_url, follow_redirects=True)
        logger.debug(f"Server responded download request: {response}")
        response.raise_for_status()
    except httpx.HTTPError as he:
        logger.error(f"Failed to download the template: {he}")
        raise SystemExit(1) from None
    try:
        zip_file_path.write_bytes(response.content)
        logger.debug(f"Downloaded the zip to {zip_file_path}")
    except OSError as ose:
        logger.error(f"Unable to write the downloaded zip to disk {ose}")
        raise SystemExit(1) from None

View on GitHub (pinned to 45b8ed5ab7)

Solutions

1. Check disk space (df -h) and free space if the temp volume is full.
2. Verify TMPDIR is set to an existing, writable directory, or set it explicitly: TMPDIR=$HOME/tmp reflex init.
3. If in a container, ensure /tmp is mounted writable.

Example fix

# no code fix; environment fix
# before: TMPDIR=/nonexistent reflex init --template-url ...
# after:  mkdir -p $HOME/tmp && TMPDIR=$HOME/tmp reflex init --template-url ...

import os, tempfile

def temp_writable() -> bool:
    try:
        tempfile.mkdtemp()
        return True
    except OSError:
        return False

# or pre-flight: os.access(os.environ.get("TMPDIR", "/tmp"), os.W_OK)

try:
    create_config_init_app_from_remote_template(...)
except SystemExit:
    # inspect logs; retry with TMPDIR pointed at a writable location
    os.environ["TMPDIR"] = os.path.expanduser("~/tmp")
    create_config_init_app_from_remote_template(...)

When it happens

Trigger: Creating a new app from a remote template (reflex init with a template URL) on a system where the temp directory (TMPDIR/TMP/TEMP or /tmp) is unwritable, full, or missing; mkdtemp raising PermissionError/NoSpaceError (subclasses of OSError).

Common situations: Read-only or full /tmp in containers and CI; TMPDIR pointing to a nonexistent directory; sandboxed environments restricting filesystem writes; disk quota exceeded.

Related errors

• Failed to create temp directory for extracting zip: {ose}
• Unable to write the downloaded zip to disk {ose}
• Only {template_name=} should be provided, got {template_code
• For `{template_name}` template, `template_code_dir_name` and
• Failed to download the template: {he}

AI-assisted analysis of reflex-dev/reflex@45b8ed5ab7 (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2d38cea2fdf01161. Report an issue: GitHub.