Setting 'downloadsFolder' option in config as empty string deletes whole project(!)

[alexwoollam]

Current behavior

Please see my fork cypress.config.js https://github.com/alexwoollam/cypress-test-tiny/blob/master/cypress.config.js

Adding the config option downloadsFolder: "" and running cypress run results in

Oops...we found an error preparing this test file:

  > cypress/e2e/spec.cy.js

The error was:

Error: Webpack Compilation Error
multi ./cypress/e2e/spec.cy.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '/run/media/alex/93b28b87-f65f-4e20-807f-0d1b65cd0ffe/www/cypress-test-tiny/cypress/e2e/spec.cy.js' in '/run/media/alex/93b28b87-f65f-4e20-807f-0d1b65cd0ffe/www/cypress-test-tiny'
[...]

^- this error is due to the fact cypress has deleted the whole project folder (everything, including .git). This is probably by design, but presuming I didn't set downloadsFolder to the root of the project. Further testing with "../" set, in fact deletes the whole /var/www folder(!!!) (structure: /var/www/project ). Interestingly, I am not running cypress with sudo. I haven't tested this with a folder set as owned by other users yet.

Notes:

• Strangely running cypress open and running specs, runs as expected.
• We have hit this on multiple OS', node, npm/yarn and cypress versions.
• Same behavior was observed using the typescript setup.

To reproduce:

• clone fork.
• ls -al see the project.
• npm install (if needed).
• cypress run.
• See error message.
• ls -al, see an empty folder.

Docs

https://docs.cypress.io/guides/references/configuration#Folders--Files

Cypress package version: 12.8.1
Cypress binary version: 12.8.1
Electron version: 21.0.0
Bundled Node version: 16.16.0

Desired behavior

Please idiot-proof this option.

Test code to reproduce

https://github.com/alexwoollam/cypress-test-tiny/

Cypress Version

12.8.1

Node version

16.1610

Operating System

Debian 11, Manjaro 6.1, MacOS 12

Debug Logs

No response

Other

No response

[alexwoollam]

Further to the above, I can confirm the following with "../" set:
(in /var/www):

$ git clone git@github.com:alexwoollam/cypress-test-tiny.git
$ sudo mkdir ./something
[..did sudo password..]
$  ls -al 
[... 
    alex:alex cypress-test-tiny
    root:root something 
...]
$ cd cypress-test-tiny
$  cypress run
[...output...]
$  cd ..
$  ls -al
[...(empty)...]

[emilyrohrbough]

OH MY 😰 what a terrible bug....I didn't even want to try & repo this (yay for docker!). This is problem that definitely needs fixed.

Mind sharing how you discovered this and/why you wanted to set downloadsFolder: "" in the first place?

Looking at where this is called, this is an issue with screenshotsFolder and videoFolder as well.

Is this something you are interested in fixing?