[BUG] Previously solved bug has reappeared in `v4.1.3` (#278)

[DrKJeff16]

Description

I'm having the same issue as in #278 with bob v4.1.3. All bob/Neovim instances wereclosed, mind you.

$ bob use nightly
2025-10-11T19:15:26.888205Z  INFO Updating neovim proxy
2025-10-11T19:15:26.888342Z ERROR Error: The file /home/drjeff16/.cargo/bin/bob is busy. Please make sure to close any processes using it.

ps aux Screenshot

Neither does it work when doing testing through GitHub Actions (https://github.com/stephansama/fzf-nerdfont.nvim/pull/16):

https://github.com/stephansama/fzf-nerdfont.nvim/blob/e696455e480b42515f0e1b08f3d4e014f3ab4365/Makefile#L26-L34

---

Solution

Downgrading to v4.1.2 worked for me.

[MordechaiHadad]

Could you check maybe bob itself is running? when bob finds nvim process running it will give this message: Neovim is currently running. Please close it before switching versions. instead of the one it gave you.

[folke]

Same problem. It says /usr/bin/bob is busy, not neovim. I have no other neovim process or bob processes running.

[folke]

Was resolved in my case after deleting ~/.local/share/bob

[DrKJeff16]

Could you check maybe bob itself is running? when bob finds nvim process running it will give this message: Neovim is currently running. Please close it before switching versions. instead of the one it gave you.

@MordechaiHadad Neither bob nor Neovim were running. I was thorough when checking for that.

@folke described it better.

[MordechaiHadad]

Hmm this is a particularly odd issue, what reproduction steps can I take to get this error?

[DrKJeff16]

Hang on, reproducing (I removed bob for testing).

[folke]

In my case the busy exe was /usr/bin/bob, so it did not find the nvim exe path correctlty and of course this file (being the one updating) is busy.

I'm using the Arch installation bob 4.1.3-1.1

[MordechaiHadad]

In my case the busy exe was /usr/bin/bob, so it did not find the nvim exe path correctlty and of course this file (being the one updating) is busy.

I'm using the Arch installation bob 4.1.3-1.1

I'll try your setup, and see if I can reproduce.

[MrDwarf7]

This error message you're seeing is likely coming up from here (or the sync handler, but likely not in your use-case).

I had a look into this when it first got posted, then saw your solution in the linked PR over in the fzf-nerdfont repo that you got it working. With the original one mentioned in the thread coming from here which is a little different and passes just fine after testing earlier. Might be difficult to fix up with how things are currently being handled.

Are you be able; at least for CI/CD pipelines able to use a preset config file or echo out into it this?: "ignore_running_instances": true if you can test with this - may resolve some of the issues

[DrKJeff16]

Are you be able; at least for CI/CD pipelines able to use a preset config file or echo out into it this?: "ignore_running_instances": true if you can test with this - may resolve some of the issues

@MrDwarf7 I'm currently experiencing no issue (back in v4.1.3, deleted $HOME/.local/share/bob^1). However, when I had issues I had no customized config. I then tried to add "ignore_running_instances": true but that did nothing.

Currently, while experiencing no issue, my config is the same I added when I was having issues:

{
  "enable_nightly_info": true,
  "enable_release_build": true,
  "downloads_location": "$HOME/.local/share/bob",
  "rollback_limit": 3,
  "github_mirror": "https://github.com",
  "add_neovim_binary_to_path": true,
  "ignore_running_instances": true
}

[MordechaiHadad]

Schrodinger's bob

[DrKJeff16]

In my case the busy exe was /usr/bin/bob, so it did not find the nvim exe path correctlty and of course this file (being the one updating) is busy.

I'm using the Arch installation bob 4.1.3-1.1

@folke Same thing, Arch installation (btw).

---

@MrDwarf7 I think something in the vicinity of this section might be acting funny (not a Rust dev, you'll know better):

https://github.com/MordechaiHadad/bob/blob/03f65d0700ff3e7c74c65e6348f4caf130fcf8e4/src/cli.rs#L184-L188

As my original issue can tell, switching from Arch package to cargo build --release type of install didn't solve it. Downgrading (without removing the aforementioned data directory) initially solved it for me.

[DrKJeff16]

Update

The oldest stuff I have in my shell history reveals something odd (history | grep bob). It could be nothing but just for the record:

 4739  bob rm nightly-56713ef

Note that I never ever installed that version. In fact, by then I was already suffering through that issue:

# TOP LINE
 4728  pkill -KILL bob      # Me attempting to kill any bob instance
 4735  bob use
 4736  bob use --help
 4738  bob rm --help
 4739  bob rm nightly-56713ef
 4740  pacman -Ss bob
 4741  pacman -Rn bob
 4742  pacman -Rns bob
 4745  cargo install bob
 4746  cargo install --git https://github.com/MordechaiHadad/bob.git
...

[MrDwarf7]

re: @DrKJeff16 -

@MrDwarf7 I think something in the vicinity of this section might be acting funny (not a Rust dev, you'll know better):

bob/src/cli.rs

Lines 184 to 188 in 03f65d0 if !config.config.ignore_running_instances.unwrap_or(true) && is_neovim_running() { return Err(anyhow::anyhow!( "Neovim is currently running. Please close it before switching versions." )); }

Close, your particular error message output is a little different - points to this area of the code: https://github.com/MordechaiHadad/bob/blob/03f65d0700ff3e7c74c65e6348f4caf130fcf8e4/src/handlers/use_handler.rs#L276

The error message in src/cli.rs you linked is "Please close it before switching versions." and doesn't have a place holder for the file path either. It's definitely coming up from the use_handler.rs file.

[MordechaiHadad]

In my case the busy exe was /usr/bin/bob, so it did not find the nvim exe path correctlty and of course this file (being the one updating) is busy.

I'm using the Arch installation bob 4.1.3-1.1

Completely removed bob from my system, and reinstalled again from arch repos, ran 2 commands bob use stable and bob use nightly wasn't able to reproduce the error you both have.

[folke]

@MordechaiHadad the problem also disappeared for me after deleting ~/.local/share/bob, so there's no way to reproduce

[MordechaiHadad]

@MordechaiHadad the problem also disappeared for me after deleting ~/.local/share/bob, so there's no way to reproduce

What was the version that you tried to install and gave you this error? is it specifically nightly or any other version?

[folke]

I did bob use nightly, to update my nightly

[folke]

You can ignore my issue. Instead of using the patched nvim, I create a symlink from the nightly dir to ~/.local/share/bob-nvim (based on the used file).

It probably failed because that bob-nvim was a symlink.

After deleteing the directory, the symlink was gone, so worked again

[MordechaiHadad]

I did bob use nightly, to update my nightly

Hmm alright it might be reproducible then.

update: failed to reproduce.

[folke]

Ignore my last comment. I did not change nvim-bin. It was a totally different symlink not even under ~/.local/share/bob, so that wouldn't have caused issues :)

[DrKJeff16]

Update: Unable to reproduce either. How did my system do that? You know it happened because of my screenshots^1...

Also, @stephansama stated an issue somehow, but unknown what version they were using.

[folke]

I'm able to reproduce. Just had it again, and it was user error in my case. The problem was that due to an issue in my dots, /usr/bin was on my path before bob.

If that's the case and you want to update, it checks the path where nvim is located and assumes it's bob's version.

https://github.com/MordechaiHadad/bob/blob/1d8642ac713e16a5d06f7f970ba5c302747cbc6a/src/handlers/use_handler.rs#L227

Easy to reproduce by adding /usr/bin early on your PATH

[DrKJeff16]

@folke Interestitng finding. In my case my dots don't behave like that, though I have nvim in /usr/local/bin (manual compilation).

I've attempted to reproduce it to no avail. Screenshot below (mind the forceful $PATH modifications):

• bob ==> /usr/bin/bob (installed through pacman)

Am I missing something, or doing something wrong?

[folke]

Can you double check with which nvim? And do you have system neovim installed?

[DrKJeff16]

Can you double check with which nvim?

And do you have system neovim installed?

I have the Arch Linux package binary (/usr/bin/nvim, for archlinux.vim and other stuff).

[folke]

Weird, I can 100% reproduce it this way

[DrKJeff16]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll try to look into it more.