Bug: AppImage injects bundled libs into system git's environment, breaking on modern distros

[jmoseley]

On Arch Linux (and likely other rolling-release distros), all git operations fail with:

git: /tmp/appimage_extracted_.../usr/lib/libpcre2-8.so.0: no version information available (required by git)
git-remote-https: /tmp/appimage_extracted_.../usr/lib/libssl.so.3: version `OPENSSL_3.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/libcurl.so.4)
git-remote-https: /tmp/appimage_extracted_.../usr/lib/libssl.so.3: version `OPENSSL_3.5.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/libngtcp2_crypto_ossl.so.0)
fatal: remote helper 'https' aborted session

This practically means all sessions fail upon creation. I documented in this comment in detail.

Root cause: When the AppImage spawns git subprocesses, it passes its extracted lib directory (e.g. /tmp/appimage_extracted_.../usr/lib) via LD_LIBRARY_PATH. This causes the system git binary to load the AppImage's outdated bundled libssl and libpcre2 instead of system ones, which on my Arch installation are incompatible.

Workaround: Wrapping /usr/bin/git to strip AppImage paths from LD_LIBRARY_PATH before execution resolves the issue:

sudo mv /usr/bin/git /usr/bin/git.real
sudo tee /usr/bin/git << 'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(echo "$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" | tr ':' '\n' | grep -v '/tmp/appimage' | tr '\n' ':' | sed 's/:$//')
exec /usr/bin/git.real "$@"
EOF
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/git

I also needed to add additional flags:

APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1  LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libwayland-client.so.0:/usr/lib64/libwayland-egl.so.1:/usr/lib64/libwayland-server.so.0:/usr/lib64/libwayland-cursor.so.0 ./GitHub-Copilot-linux-x64.appimage

This workaround should not be required for general users. Suggested fixes:

• Sanitize LD_LIBRARY_PATH before spawning git subprocesses
• Bundle a fully self-contained git inside the AppImage
• Launch git in a clean environment via env -i

Environment:

• OS: Arch Linux
• Kernel: 7.0.10-zen1-1-zen
• OpenSSL 3.6.2
• App: GitHub Copilot AppImage (linux-x64)

[redsun82]

Probably shares the root cause with #36.

[EvanBoyle]

Thanks for the super detailed report, this was exactly what we needed. The AppImage was leaking its bundled library paths into git's environment, which is why system git helpers were loading the wrong libraries and blowing up. That's fixed in the latest release, so grab the update and give it a go. If git is still unhappy afterwards, reopen this or file a fresh one. Really appreciate you taking the time to dig in on this.

[github-app-releaser]

This issue was fixed in the public GitHub Copilot app release v0.2.27.

[DenverCoder1]

Thanks @EvanBoyle @redsun82 @jmoseley ! Can confirm both the window display and worktree creation are working for me now without the patched git in the latest release :)