What causes "[%s] is not a box id" in siyuan-note/siyuan?

Always pass the canonical notebook ID (obtain via model.ListNotebooks or the box's conf.json), never the notebook name.

[%s] is not a box id

Error message

[%s] is not a box id

What it means

Thrown by GetAssetAbsPathInBox (kernel/model/assets.go:1087) when a non-empty boxID does not match ast.IsNodeIDPattern — SiYuan's notebook ID format (a timestamp-style identifier like `20250812143022-abcdefg`). It rejects malformed box IDs (whether supplied by the caller or parsed from a `?box=` query param) before they are joined into a filesystem path.

Source

Thrown at kernel/model/assets.go:1087

// GetAssetAbsPathInBox 在指定 box 内解析资源绝对路径，不进行全局遍历。
// relativePath 必须以 assets/ 前缀开头，boxID 为空且路径没有 box 查询参数时只解析普通/全局资源，不遍历加密 box。
// 加密 box 直接从 <boxID>/assets/ 查找，不依赖后缀匹配。
func GetAssetAbsPathInBox(relativePath, boxID string) (string, error) {
	var err error
	relativePath, boxID, err = assetPathAndBox(relativePath, boxID)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	relativePath = path.Clean(relativePath)
	if relativePath == "." || strings.HasPrefix(relativePath, "../") || relativePath == ".." || path.IsAbs(relativePath) {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("[%s] is not an asset path", relativePath)
	}
	if !strings.HasPrefix(relativePath, "assets/") {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("[%s] is not an asset path (must start with assets/)", relativePath)
	}
	if boxID != "" && !ast.IsNodeIDPattern(boxID) {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("[%s] is not a box id", boxID)
	}

	if boxID == "" {
		return GetAssetAbsPathWithOpt(relativePath, false)
	}

	p := filepath.Join(util.DataDir, boxID, relativePath)
	if gulu.File.IsExist(p) {
		if !gulu.File.IsSubPath(util.WorkspaceDir, p) {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("[%s] is not sub path of workspace", p)
		}
		// 解析符号链接/目录联接，防止软链接跳出资产根目录
		if realP, evalErr := filepath.EvalSymlinks(p); evalErr == nil && realP != p {
			if !gulu.File.IsSubPath(util.WorkspaceDir, realP) {
				return "", fmt.Errorf("symlink [%s] resolves outside workspace: [%s]", p, realP)
			}
			// 验证解析后的路径仍在 <boxID>/assets/ 或全局 data/assets/ 下
			expectedPrefix := filepath.Join(util.DataDir, "assets")

View on GitHub (pinned to 251596fc0d)

Solutions

Always pass the canonical notebook ID (obtain via model.ListNotebooks or the box's conf.json), never the notebook name.
If the box came from a URL query param, validate it with ast.IsNodeIDPattern before calling.
If no specific box is intended, pass an empty string rather than a placeholder.
Treat malformed box IDs from HTTP input as a likely attack and return 400.

Example fix

// before
abs, err := model.GetAssetAbsPathInBox(rel, boxFromUser)

// after
if boxFromUser != "" && !ast.IsNodeIDPattern(boxFromUser) {
    return "", fmt.Errorf("invalid box id: %q", boxFromUser)
}
abs, err := model.GetAssetAbsPathInBox(rel, boxFromUser)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import "github.com/88250/lute/ast"

if boxID != "" && !ast.IsNodeIDPattern(boxID) {
    return fmt.Errorf("invalid box id: %q", boxID)
}

Type guard

func isValidBoxID(boxID string) bool {
    return boxID == "" || ast.IsNodeIDPattern(boxID)
}

Prevention

Always use the notebook's canonical ID (from ListNotebooks), not its name or slug.
Validate box IDs parsed from URL query params with ast.IsNodeIDPattern.
Pass an empty string rather than a placeholder when no box is intended.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GetAssetAbsPathInBox(path, boxID) where boxID is something like `../foo`, `assets`, an empty-ish string of spaces, or any value that does not fit the node-ID grammar. Also reached when a `?box=` query param in relativePath holds a garbage value (because assetPathAndBox promotes it into boxID).

Common situations: Frontend/HTTP caller passing the notebook name instead of its ID; a crafted `?box=` query param used as a traversal vector (e.g. `?box=..`); stale code that passes a human-readable slug.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@251596fc0d (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6544da5e98e52067. Report an issue: GitHub.