zed-industries/zed · error

failed to determine buffer and selection

Error message

failed to determine buffer and selection

What it means

The inline blame popover failed to resolve which buffer and row range the clicked blame belongs to. This is a generic guard inside the blame popover logic: the selection/diff mapping step (resolving buffer, buffer_diff, and base-text row translation) could not be completed, typically because the multi-buffer state changed between the popover opening and the click being handled.

Source

Thrown at crates/editor/src/git.rs:2922

            let buffer_range = range.to_point(buffer_snapshot);
            let buffer = multi_buffer.buffer(buffer_snapshot.remote_id())?;

            let Some(buffer_diff) = multi_buffer.diff_for(buffer_snapshot.remote_id()) else {
                return Some((buffer, buffer_range.start.row..buffer_range.end.row));
            };

            let buffer_diff_snapshot = buffer_diff.read(cx).snapshot(cx);
            let start = buffer_diff_snapshot
                .buffer_point_to_base_text_point(buffer_range.start, &buffer_snapshot);
            let end = buffer_diff_snapshot
                .buffer_point_to_base_text_point(buffer_range.end, &buffer_snapshot);

            Some((buffer, start.row..end.row))
        });

        let Some((buffer, selection)) = buffer_and_selection else {
            return Task::ready(Err(anyhow!("failed to determine buffer and selection")));
        };

        let Some(project) = self.project() else {
            return Task::ready(Err(anyhow!("editor does not have project")));
        };

        project.update(cx, |project, cx| {
            project.get_permalink_to_line(&buffer, selection, cx)
        })
    }
}

#[cfg(test)]
impl Editor {
    /// Returns the line range for the first diff review overlay, if one is active.
    /// Returns (start_row, end_row) as physical line numbers in the underlying file.
    pub(super) fn diff_review_line_range(&self, cx: &App) -> Option<(u32, u32)> {
        let overlay = self.diff_review_overlays.first()?;

View on GitHub (pinned to f4178619ac)

Solutions

1. Treat as transient: re-resolve the buffer and selection from the current snapshot and retry once
2. Close/dismiss the popover gracefully with no action if the buffer no longer exists
3. Check that the editor snapshot used for resolution matches the one the popover was opened with

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at crates/editor/src/git.rs:2922 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of zed-industries/zed@f4178619ac (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f741a793d66462d0. Report an issue: GitHub.