stablyai/orca · error · Error

Managed Codex home directory does not exist on disk.

Error message

Managed Codex home directory does not exist on disk.

What it means

Thrown by assertManagedHomePath in two cases: (1) WSL branch — the wsl.exe canonicalization returned an empty string, meaning the path does not resolve to a real directory inside the distro (service.ts:1506); (2) the non-Windows-UNC fallback — existsSync(candidatePath) is false (service.ts:1520). Orca will not operate on a managed home that is not actually present on disk.

Source

Thrown at src/main/codex-accounts/service.ts:1506

                  'managed_root_real=$(readlink -f -- "$managed_root")',
                  'test -f "$candidate_real/.orca-managed-home"',
                  ...(expectedAccountId === undefined
                    ? [
                        'case "$candidate_real" in "$managed_root_real"/*/home) printf "%s\\n" "$candidate_real" ;; *) exit 35 ;; esac'
                      ]
                    : [
                        `expected_marker=${shellQuote(expectedAccountId)}`,
                        'test "$candidate_real" = "$managed_root_real/$expected_marker/home"',
                        'test "$(cat "$candidate_real/.orca-managed-home")" = "$expected_marker"',
                        'printf "%s\\n" "$candidate_real"'
                      ])
                ].join('\n')
              )
            ],
            { encoding: 'utf-8', timeout: 5000 }
          ).trim()
          if (!canonicalLinuxPath) {
            throw new Error('Managed Codex home directory does not exist on disk.')
          }
          return toWindowsWslPath(canonicalLinuxPath, wslInfo.distro)
        } catch (error) {
          throw new Error('Managed WSL Codex home is outside Orca account storage.', {
            cause: error
          })
        }
      }

      if (wslInfo.linuxPath.split('/').includes('..')) {
        throw new Error('Managed WSL Codex home is outside Orca account storage.')
      }
      if (!existsSync(candidatePath)) {
        throw new Error('Managed Codex home directory does not exist on disk.')
      }
      if (!existsSync(join(candidatePath, '.orca-managed-home'))) {
        throw new Error('Managed Codex home is missing Orca ownership marker.')
      }

View on GitHub (pinned to 1136503c6a)

Solutions

  1. For host accounts on re-auth, ensureManagedHomeForReauthentication (service.ts:1370) recreates the home at the exact persisted path — ensure that path matches and re-run reauthenticateAccount.
  2. For WSL, confirm the distro is registered and the linux path exists; if the distro was reset, re-add the account.
  3. If the home cannot be recovered, remove the account and add it again so a fresh managed home is created.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Confirm the managed home exists on disk before re-auth/import.
import { existsSync } from 'node:fs'
if (!existsSync(account.managedHomePath)) {
  // for host re-auth, ensureManagedHomeForReauthentication will recreate it at the persisted path;
  // for other flows, remove + re-add the account
}

Try / catch

try {
  await service.reauthenticateAccount(accountId)
} catch (error) {
  if (error instanceof Error && error.message === 'Managed Codex home directory does not exist on disk.') {
    // remove and re-add the account to recreate its managed home
  } else throw error
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Re-authenticating or importing into a managed home whose directory was deleted from disk (host branch), or whose WSL path does not exist inside the distro (WSL branch returns empty canonical path).

Common situations: User or a cleanup tool deleted <userData>/codex-accounts/<id>/home; the WSL distro was unregistered/reset (so the linux path is gone); or the account was restored from a backup that did not include the home directories.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stablyai/orca@1136503c6a (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1a17d4269514aa6c. Report an issue: GitHub.