[Bug]: ~/ media links fail on Fedora Atomic homes under /var/home

[netherguy4]

Before submitting

• I searched existing issues and did not find a duplicate.
• I included enough detail to reproduce or investigate the problem.

Area

apps/web

Steps to reproduce

1. Run the desktop app on a system with home directory /var/home/<user> (observed on Fedora COSMIC Atomic). Make sure the project's recorded workspace path also starts with /var/home/<user>, e.g. /var/home/<user>/project.
2. Have a readable, valid MP4 at $HOME/Downloads/repro.mp4, outside the project directory. The example filename and directory are placeholders; the observed failure used an existing MP4 in the user's Downloads directory.
3. Have the assistant return this Markdown link in a project thread:

   [repro.mp4](~/Downloads/repro.mp4)

4. Click the rendered video link.

Expected behavior

~/Downloads/repro.mp4 resolves to the environment's home directory, e.g. /var/home/<user>/Downloads/repro.mp4, and the media preview loads the existing file.

Actual behavior

The preview shows a Media unavailable toast with Media file was not found.

The original MP4 exists and is readable by the same user: a regular file, mode 0644, 1,477,238 bytes, with an MP4 ftyp header. Reading its bytes succeeded. No permission changes were needed.

Impact

Minor bug or occasional failure

Home-relative media links cannot be opened on this home-directory layout; an absolute link avoids the path-resolution problem.

Version or commit

Observed in desktop 0.0.45-nightly.20261002.2584.

The same unresolved-tilde code is still present in v0.0.46-nightly.20261004.2648 and main @ 5a96895a85b43c838da6c89cf21068b99c003d5a. Those newer versions were checked in source, not through a fresh UI reproduction.

Environment

Fedora Linux 44.20260929.0 (COSMIC Atomic), Linux desktop AppImage. Home directory: /var/home/<user>. The issue occurs when opening a local media link from the chat.

Logs or stack traces

No stack trace was captured. The on-screen error is:

Media unavailable
Media file was not found.

Screenshots, recordings, or supporting files

Source investigation:

• inferHomeFromCwd in the latest checked nightly recognizes only /Users/<user>, /home/<user>, and Windows Users paths. It returns undefined for /var/home/<user>/..., so resolvePathLinkTarget leaves ~/... unchanged.
• Markdown file-link resolution calls that resolver.
• Server media-file resolution treats the remaining ~/... as relative to the workspace, yielding a nonexistent path such as <project>/~/Downloads/repro.mp4.

The older closed issue #263 concerns entering a project path in Add Project; this report concerns media links in chat.

Workaround

Suggested workaround: use a full absolute Markdown destination, for example:

[repro.mp4](/var/home/<user>/Downloads/repro.mp4)

This bypasses home inference. The file's absolute path was verified readable; playback through the replacement link was not separately verified.

[juliusmarminge]

Note

Grok responding on behalf of Julius.

Triage

Thanks a lot for the careful report and the source links, @netherguy4. They pointed straight at the cause. I confirmed this is still the case on main (5a96895).

What I found

• [repro.mp4](~/Downloads/repro.mp4) is handled as a relative file link and goes through resolvePathLinkTarget. inferHomeFromCwd only expands ~/ when the recorded project path starts with /Users/<user>, /home/<user>, or a Windows X:\Users\<user> path:

t3code/apps/web/src/terminal-links.ts

Lines 121 to 138 in 5a96895

	function inferHomeFromCwd(cwd: string): string | undefined {
	const posixUser = cwd.match(/^\/Users\/([^/]+)/);
	if (posixUser?.[1]) {
	return `/Users/${posixUser[1]}`;
	}
	const posixHome = cwd.match(/^\/home\/([^/]+)/);
	if (posixHome?.[1]) {
	return `/home/${posixHome[1]}`;
	}
	const windowsUser = cwd.match(/^([A-Za-z]:\\Users\\[^\\]+)/);
	if (windowsUser?.[1]) {
	return windowsUser[1];
	}
	return undefined;
	}

• /var/home/<user>/... matches none of those, so the destination stays ~/Downloads/repro.mp4. AssetAccess then joins it onto the project with path.resolve, which gives /var/home/<user>/<project>/~/Downloads/repro.mp4. That path doesn't exist, hence "Media file was not found." An absolute destination skips home inference, which is why the workaround works.
• This is separate from ~ expansion for project path not working #263, which was about ~ in the Add Project field. Workspace roots already go through expandHomePath, which uses the process home directory; media paths don't.
• The same client resolver handles other ~/ links too, like terminal output and file chips. Those also miss whenever the project lives outside the three prefixes, for example a project under /opt or /srv on an ordinary /home/<user> machine.

Likely fix area

• One narrow option is adding /var/home/<user> to the prefixes in inferHomeFromCwd, though that wouldn't help projects outside a home directory.
• A broader option is resolving ~/ with the real home directory, which the server already has through os.homedir() / expandHomePath, either by expanding it server-side in AssetAccess or by exposing the home path to the client resolver.

A maintainer will decide on the fix direction.