Programs assume files from nix store writable

[davidak]

Issue description

Some programs have issues on NixOS because files copied from nix store are read only.

This results in permission errors like this:

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/davidak/.openshot_qt/title/temp.svg'

Is there any way to solve it for us or do we rely on upstream to fix it? What can we suggest them as a better way doing it?

I had this multiple times: #32898 #43685

Some developers refuse to fix such errors: "Both 1970 dates and invalid permissions are caused by NixOS being crazy, not Nikola."

[FlorianFranzen]

Have you tried just changing the files/folder owner and permission with:

sudo chown -R davidak ~/.openshot_qt
chmod -R +w ~/.openshot_qt

[davidak]

@FlorianFranzen No. That would not solve the problem in general.

[erictapen]

Some developers refuse to fix such errors: "Both 1970 dates and invalid permissions are caused by NixOS being crazy, not Nikola."

Only solution I see here is that e.g. you provide a patch for the package that takes care of the file permissions. If upstream doesn't want it, it would need to be maintained in Nixpkgs.

[ghost]

"Both 1970 dates and invalid permissions are caused by NixOS being crazy, not Nikola."

That's wrong; it stems from unixfs being stupid.

[peti]

I don't believe that we can do anything about this other than reporting the issue upstream, hoping that they'll fix it (as the OpenShot developers have in d7bbcdf). If they don't want to do that, then we'll have to do it ourselves.

Anyhow, would anyone object to closing this bug report? It does not seem to represent an actionable task and therefore it's to tell what to do about it.

[davidak]

I don't believe that we can do anything about this other than reporting the issue upstream

Could we add it to the documentation with an example? Maybe in a Troubleshooting section of the nixpkgs manual.

Then others don't have to open the same issue again.

[peti]

Could we add it to the documentation with an example?

Would you like to create a PR with a suggestion?

Then others don't have to open the same issue again.

My guess is that others have to open a new ticket every time they run into an issue like this. There is no other way to fix them.

[davidak]

Would you like to create a PR with a suggestion?

No, i just can't use the documentation system. I'm waiting for the migration to Asciidoc!

My guess is that others have to open a new ticket every time they run into an issue like this. There is no other way to fix them.

OK, but it would help to have documented how to fix them.

Just explain the issue in one sentence and "report the issue upstream". And when upstream don't wan to fix it, maintain a patch in nixpkgs.

[peti]

Just explain the issue in one sentence and "report the issue upstream".

No, I don't care enough to extend the docs for this issue; please do it yourself if you believe that this is important.

[davidak]

@peti sorry, i don't mean you should do it! i just argue that we should leave the issue open until the information is documented by someone. that someone might be me in half a year when writing documentation is easier and don't involve writing XML.

[stale]

Thank you for your contributions.
This has been automatically marked as stale because it has had no activity for 180 days.
If this is still important to you, we ask that you leave a comment below. Your comment can be as simple as "still important to me". This lets people see that at least one person still cares about this. Someone will have to do this at most twice a year if there is no other activity.
Here are suggestions that might help resolve this more quickly:

1. Search for maintainers and people that previously touched the
   related code and @ mention them in a comment.
2. Ask on the NixOS Discourse. 3. Ask on the #nixos channel on
   irc.freenode.net.

[davidak]

...

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[davidak]

...

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[khaled]

...