bug: sliently ignoring curl failure if XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is not writable

[sayandipdutta]

Describe the bug

As noted in #775 for any message, avante shows generation complete, please view response above. No amount of reinstalling, clearing saved data, changing neovim version helped.

I dug a bit deeper and found out curl was bailing out with exit code 23, i.e. it was unable to write response in temp file. It turns out curl checks whether XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set, if it is, it tries to write data there, if not, only then it goes to /tmp (see nvim-lua/plenary.nvim#536 (comment)). In my case, I had turned off systemd because of some issue I was facing with WSL+Ubuntu 22.04+, but XDG_RUNTIME_DIR was set on my .zshrc. But since there was no systeminit daemon, the /run/user/$UID was not getting created. Furthermore, forcibly creating XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is not enough, it should be owned by the user, i.e. it should be writable.

To reproduce

Try removing XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (at your own risk 😄 ) I'd recommend taking a backup of the directory first, so it can be restored.

$ if [ -z $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR ]; then
        export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$UID
        sudo rm -rf $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
fi
$ 

Open neovim, launch AvanteAsk and put in any message, you should be able to reproduce #775 .

Expected behavior

When XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is not writable, curl will inevitably fail. In fact, avante.nvim should not try to set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR on the fly, because that may have other concerns. But the user should be notified with a descriptive error message should be raised so that they can take action if possible.

Installation method

Use lazy.nvim:

return {
  "yetone/avante.nvim",
  event = "VeryLazy",
  lazy = false,
  opts = {
    provider = "claude",
  },
  build = "make",
  keys = {
    {
      "<leader>aa",
      function()
        require("avante.api").ask()
      end,
      desc = "avante: ask",
      mode = { "n", "v" },
    },
    {
      "<leader>ar",
      function()
        require("avante.api").refresh()
      end,
      desc = "avante: refresh",
    },
    {
      "<leader>ae",
      function()
        require("avante.api").edit()
      end,
      desc = "avante: edit",
      mode = "v",
    },
  },
  dependencies = {
    "stevearc/dressing.nvim",
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
    --- The below dependencies are optional,
    "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons", -- or echasnovski/mini.icons
    {
      -- support for image pasting
      "HakonHarnes/img-clip.nvim",
      event = "VeryLazy",
      opts = {
        -- recommended settings
        default = {
          embed_image_as_base64 = false,
          prompt_for_file_name = false,
          drag_and_drop = {
            insert_mode = true,
          },
          -- required for Windows users
          use_absolute_path = true,
        },
      },
    },
    {
      -- Make sure to setup it properly if you have lazy=true
      "MeanderingProgrammer/render-markdown.nvim",
      opts = {
        file_types = { "markdown", "Avante" },
      },
      ft = { "markdown", "Avante" },
    },
  },
}

Environment

neovim version: 0.10.2
platform: Ubuntu 24.04 On WSL2 on Windows 11

Repro

No response

[sayandipdutta]

There are a few workarounds:

Option 1. If XDG_RUNTIME_DIR does not exist, unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (do this only if you know nothing else will break)

$ unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$UID

then curl will write in /tmp

Option 2. Create XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and own it.

$ sudo mkdir -p $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
$ sudo chown -R <username> $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

Option 3. If you expect XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to exist, investigate why it doesn't in the first place.

[sayandipdutta]

Ah! I just found #315 , and if the wiki entry was a little more prominent I wouldn't have to pull my hairs out. Still I think silently ignoring this is problematic, and had it showed the exit code 23 message instead of ignoring it, I would have found the issue earlier. So I will still keep my PR (#785) open.

For others, the aboslute last line in the wiki suggests:

WSL

Try set XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/tmp/"

[parchinski]

This solution fixed it for me! Thank you so much.

[sayandipdutta]

handled in #785