tauri-apps/tauri · error

failed to serialize global API script paths

Error message

failed to serialize global API script paths

What it means

`save_global_api_scripts_paths` serializes the collected global API script paths to JSON with `serde_json::to_string(...).expect(...)`. Serialization of a `Vec<PathBuf>` can only fail if a path contains invalid UTF-16/unrepresentable characters (e.g. interior NULs on Unix), so this panic signals a corrupted or non-representable path value.

Solutions

1. Sanitize/validate all collected script paths are valid UTF-8 before saving
2. Rebuild cleanly (`cargo clean`) to flush corrupted generated values
3. Find the source producing non-UTF8 path components (env vars, config) and fix it

Example fix

// before
fs::write(out_dir.join(GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_FILE_LIST_PATH), serde_json::to_string(&scripts).expect("failed to serialize global API script paths"))
// after
let json = serde_json::to_string(&scripts).unwrap_or_else(|e| panic!("invalid path data: {e}"));
fs::write(out_dir.join(GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_FILE_LIST_PATH), json)

for p in &scripts {
  assert!(p.to_str().is_some(), "non-UTF8 path in global scripts: {:?}", p);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `tauri_utils::plugin::save_global_api_scripts_paths` where one of the collected `PathBuf`s contains invalid Unicode (e.g. interior NUL byte), making `serde_json::to_string` return `Err`.

Common situations: Paths constructed from raw bytes read from the filesystem on Unix (OsStr with non-UTF8 bytes); corrupted environment or generated path values; extremely rare in normal builds.

Understand the failure class

Background: "JSON serialization failed", "not JSON serializable", "Failed to serialize": why JSON marshaling errors happen and how to fix them — this error's family across 46 libraries.

Related errors

• failed to parse plugin global API script paths
• failed to canonicalize global API script path
• failed to parse capabilities
• failed to parse plugin manifest map
• failed to read Android codegen directory

AI-assisted analysis of tauri-apps/tauri@460ec35447 (2026-09-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4e2bb5ca92ed748d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/tauri-utils/src/plugin.rs:57

    for (key, value) in vars_os() {
      let key = key.to_string_lossy();

      if key == format!("DEP_TAURI_{GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_PATH_KEY}") {
        tauri_global_scripts = Some(PathBuf::from(value));
      } else if key.starts_with("DEP_") && key.ends_with(GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_PATH_KEY) {
        let script_path = PathBuf::from(value);
        scripts.push(script_path);
      }
    }

    if let Some(tauri_global_scripts) = tauri_global_scripts {
      scripts.insert(0, tauri_global_scripts);
    }

    fs::write(
      out_dir.join(GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_FILE_LIST_PATH),
      serde_json::to_string(&scripts).expect("failed to serialize global API script paths"),
    )
    .expect("failed to write global API script");
  }

  /// Read global api scripts from [`GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_FILE_LIST_PATH`]
  pub fn read_global_api_scripts(out_dir: &Path) -> Option<Vec<String>> {
    let global_scripts_path = out_dir.join(GLOBAL_API_SCRIPT_FILE_LIST_PATH);
    if !global_scripts_path.exists() {
      return None;
    }

    let global_scripts_str = fs::read_to_string(global_scripts_path)
      .expect("failed to read plugin global API script paths");
    let global_scripts = serde_json::from_str::<Vec<PathBuf>>(&global_scripts_str)
      .expect("failed to parse plugin global API script paths");

    Some(
      global_scripts

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