[bug #68223] recent macOS: find / - failed to read file names from file system at or below ‘/’

Bernhard Voelker <[email protected]> Sat, 11 Apr 2026 05:38:50 -0400 (EDT)

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnu.findutils.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Update of bug #68223 (group findutils):

                Category:                    None => find
                  Status:                    None => Need Info
             Assigned to:                    None => berny

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Follow-up Comment #2:

The error handled in find(1) is coming from the gnulib fts_read function:

$ GIT_PAGER= git grep -C4 'failed to read file names from file system at or
below'
find/ftsfind.c-      /* fts_read returned NULL; distinguish between "finished"
and "error". */
find/ftsfind.c-      if (errno)
find/ftsfind.c-        {
find/ftsfind.c-          error (0, errno,
find/ftsfind.c:                 "failed to read file names from file system at
or below %s",
find/ftsfind.c-                 safely_quote_err_filename (0, arg));
find/ftsfind.c-          state.exit_status = EXIT_FAILURE;
find/ftsfind.c-          return false;
find/ftsfind.c-        }

Hence I would expect that other FTS-using tools like e.g. coreutils tools
du(1), chmod(1), chcon(1) and rm(1) should also be affected.

The question is what error fts_read is getting from the system?
I don't have any experience with macOS nor such a device, but it might be
that some virtual filesystem on macOS is returning an error?
So would you please provide some strace-kind information for the the failing
part?
Eventually we can single out that special situation in the gnulib FTS module.

P.S. I don't have an idea if the macOS port is adding code which may interfere
here.
Can someone rule that out as well?


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