brew doctor error message: Error: pathname contains \0:

[nachbar]

I got the following error from brew doctor -- no change after brew update. I use rbenv to control my ruby version, and installed rbenv after installing homebrew (I used homebrew to install rbenv). Note that the trace includes the system ruby 1.9 I initially got the message when ruby 2 was my global version, but I get the same error if 1.9 or system are the global versions, and even if I reset my path to the default path, which results in using ruby version ruby 1.8.7 (2012-02-08 patchlevel 358) [universal-darwin12.0]

Interestingly, brew install (as in brew install mongodb) works correctly and without complaint.

Warbler:~ nachbar$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/var/rbenv/shims:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin

Output from brew doctor:
Warbler:~ nachbar$ brew doctor
Error: pathname contains \0: "\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000"
Please report this bug:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/troubleshooting
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:215:in initialize' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:823:innew'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:823:in readlink' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/extend/pathname.rb:254:inresolved_path_exists?'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:191:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:1024:infind'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:39:in find' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:38:incatch'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:38:in find' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:1024:infind'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:190:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:189:ineach'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:189:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1094:insend'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1094:in doctor' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1093:ineach'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1093:in doctor' /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95:insend'
/usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95

Warbler:~ nachbar$ brew --config
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 0.9.4
ORIGIN: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew
HEAD: bb84a5a
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
CPU: 24-core 64-bit arrandale
OS X: 10.8.4-x86_64
Xcode: 4.6.3
CLT: 4.6.0.0.1.1365549073
LLVM-GCC: build 2336
Clang: 4.2 build 425
X11: N/A
System Ruby: 1.8.7-358
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/bin/python
Ruby: /usr/local/var/rbenv/shims/ruby

Warbler:~ nachbar$ rbenv versions
system
1.9.3-p327

• 2.0.0-p195 (set by /usr/local/var/rbenv/version)
  jruby-1.7.4
  Warbler:~ nachbar$

Same result with ruby 1.9:

Warbler:~ nachbar$ rbenv global 1.9.3-p327
Warbler:~ nachbar$ brew doctor
Error: pathname contains \0: "\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000"
Please report this bug:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/troubleshooting
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:215:in initialize' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:823:innew'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:823:in readlink' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/extend/pathname.rb:254:inresolved_path_exists?'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:191:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:1024:infind'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:39:in find' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:38:incatch'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:38:in find' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:1024:infind'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:190:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:189:ineach'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:189:in check_for_broken_symlinks' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1094:insend'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1094:in doctor' /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1093:ineach'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/doctor.rb:1093:in doctor' /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95:insend'
/usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95
Warbler:~ nachbar$ rbenv versions
system

• 1.9.3-p327 (set by /usr/local/var/rbenv/version)
  2.0.0-p195
  jruby-1.7.4
  Warbler:~ nachbar$

[adamv]

Note that changing your rbenv ruby doesn't have any affect on Homebrew, Homebrew always runs agains the system-provided Ruby 1.8.x.

[adamv]

It looks like there is a symlink somewhere in the prefix with a bogus name.

[adamv]

What the code is doing here is walking through Homebrew's cellar looking for dangling symlinks. In trying to resolve a symlink, a file has a bad name. This isn't related to your $PATH.

[mistydemeo]

Looks like the same problem as #18257; what's your hard drive configuration?

[nachbar]

Thanks for the info.

I listed the path (the output of echo $PATH) on about the tenth line above.

Hard drive config: I recently added a 4 TB hard drive, used SuperDuper to copy the contents of the pre-existing 1 TB boot drive to, and then made the new 4 TB hard drive the boot disk. I did not physically remove the 1 TB drive, and it is still mounted on a subdirectory of /Volumes. I added the 4 TB disk on June 15, and did not install homebrew until June 18, so homebrew only exists on the 4 TB disk.

If the problem is a bad symlink, how would I go about finding/fixing it?

[adamv]

If the filenames are very out of whack they might show up weird on the command line with ls, so walking through /usr/local looking for them might be an option.

[adamv]

See for instance #12906.

[bunnymatic]

I ran into this recently too. Somehow my freetype and libpng libraries were all messed up in the brew directories. For example, under /usr/local i found this

ll opt/freetype
lrwxr-xr-x  1 jon  admin  26 Aug 10 09:36 opt/freetype -> 9=17=?977==EAF=9;?9779799;

I'm not sure what screwed up my filesystem but i was able to use this little script to quickly identify things that needed help. If you uncomment the unlink line, do it with care.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fileutils'
Dir.glob('./**/*').each do |f|
  if File.symlink?(f)
    `[ -L #{f} ] && [ -r #{f} ]`
    begin 
      #File.unlink(f) if $? != 0 
      puts f if $? != 0 
    rescue 
    end
  end
end