tonhowtf/omniget · error

wl-copy not found

Error message

wl-copy not found

What it means

On Wayland, copy_file_linux tries to spawn the wl-copy binary with MIME type text/uri-list to place a file URI on the clipboard. If wl-copy is not installed or cannot be spawned, the code immediately returns Err("wl-copy not found"). This is an environment/dependency problem, not a code bug.

Solutions

1. Install the wl-clipboard package (e.g. `sudo apt install wl-clipboard` or `sudo dnf install wl-clipboard`).
2. Verify `which wl-copy` resolves and that a Wayland compositor session is running.
3. Ensure the code's fallback to xclip/xsel runs (the tool-choice logic should skip wl-copy when unavailable rather than hard-fail).
4. Bundle or document the wl-clipboard dependency in the app's installation instructions.

Example fix

// before
Err(_) => return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("wl-copy not found")),

// after
Err(e) => {
    tracing::warn!("[clipboard] wl-copy unavailable ({}), trying xclip", e);
    return copy_file_xclip(path).await;
}

fn wl_copy_available() -> bool {
    std::process::Command::new("which").arg("wl-copy")
        .output().map(|o| o.status.success()).unwrap_or(false)
}

if wl_copy_available() {
    copy_file_wl(path).await?;
} else {
    copy_file_xclip(path).await.or_else(|_| copy_file_xsel(path)).await?;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling copy_file_to_clipboard on a Wayland/Linux system where the wl-clipboard package (providing wl-copy) is not installed, or the binary is not on PATH so std_command("wl-copy").spawn() returns Err.

Common situations: Minimal Linux distributions or containers without wl-clipboard; CI environments with no Wayland session; users on X11-only systems running the wl-copy branch.

Understand the failure class

Background: "not installed", "pip install", "required for": how missing-dependency errors surface across open-source libraries — this error's family across 34 libraries.

Related errors

• No clipboard tool found (tried xclip, xsel, wl-copy)
• xclip not found
• {}
• xsel not found
• sessao Wayland sem XWayland: o x11grab nao enxerga a tela…

AI-assisted analysis of tonhowtf/omniget@8600b91f42 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/269b674ae591768b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src-tauri/omniget-core/src/core/clipboard.rs:126

        }
    })
    .await
    .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("{}", e))?;

    if let Ok(true) = xsel_result {
        tracing::info!("[clipboard] copied file URI to clipboard (xsel): {}", path);
        return Ok(());
    }

    let uri_clone = uri.clone();
    let wl_result = tokio::task::spawn_blocking(move || {
        let mut child = match crate::core::process::std_command("wl-copy")
            .args(["--type", "text/uri-list"])
            .stdin(std::process::Stdio::piped())
            .spawn()
        {
            Ok(c) => c,
            Err(_) => return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("wl-copy not found")),
        };
        if let Some(ref mut stdin) = child.stdin {
            use std::io::Write;
            let _ = stdin.write_all(uri_clone.as_bytes());
        }
        let output = child.wait_with_output()?;
        if output.status.success() {
            Ok(true)
        } else {
            Ok(false)
        }
    })
    .await
    .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("{}", e))?;

    if let Ok(true) = wl_result {
        tracing::info!("[clipboard] copied file to clipboard (wl-copy): {}", path);
        return Ok(());

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