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Error signatures

Saw an error? Find the landmine.

‘No mapping between account names and security IDs’ from icacls/ACL calls with unresolvable principals.

env-domain-principal

‘X is not recognized as an internal or external command’ — stale PATH snapshot or wrong-shell syntax.

npm-script-runs-under-cmd · cmd-posix-env-prefix · actions-default-shell · bomless-bat-oem-codepage · cmd-lf-drops-first-byte · path-unmatched-quote-swallows · session-path-stale

A bind is refused because the endpoint is occupied, and on Windows the occupant may be a leftover transmission control block rather than a process, so the port appears busy while every process listing is empty.

tcp-tcb-survives-listener

Node reports EBUSY when Windows refuses a rename or delete because another handle holds the file without FILE_SHARE_DELETE; the error names neither the holder nor the reason.

atomic-rename-loses-to-scanner · unlink-while-open-ebusy

Wrong file type for execution — e.g. attempting to CreateProcess a .ps1 script.

get-command-where-disagree

Invalid argument from spawn — on Windows typically the .cmd/.bat hardening or malformed argv.

spawn-npm-enoent-einval

Win32 reports a path over the API ceiling as ERROR_FILENAME_EXCED_RANGE or ERROR_BUFFER_OVERFLOW; Node surfaces both as ENAMETOOLONG while Python maps the same code to ENOENT, so one wall is reported as two different problems.

max-path-260 · createprocess-cmdline-32767

File or command not found — on Windows often a PATHEXT/extension resolution miss, not a missing file.

dev-null-redirect · get-command-where-disagree · spawn-npm-enoent-einval · pathext-bare-name-enoent · cmd-unc-cwd-not-supported · file-url-encodes-backslash · test-path-trailing-whitespace

Operation not permitted — including WindowsApps appExecLink spawn denials.

wsl-unc-rejects-nt-acl · icacls-inheritance-r-empty-dacl · windowsapps-alias-eperm · atomic-rename-loses-to-scanner · unlink-while-open-ebusy

A handled or meaningless exit code propagates into step/process failure.

explorer-exits-one · pwsh-leaks-lastexitcode

Windows reports a runtime that aborted itself with the fastfail code 0xC0000409, whose documented meaning is stack buffer overrun; a libuv assertion during teardown surfaces this way and misdescribes the cause.

process-exit-fastfail-0xc0000409

Downstream JSON parse failure after the shell shredded quoted arguments.

backslash-quote-ends-span

Node’s ESM loader rejects a specifier whose scheme is not file, data, or node; on Windows an absolute path supplies its drive letter as the scheme.

dynamic-import-needs-file-url

Corrupted text output from encoding mismatches (UTF-16/BOM/ANSI vs UTF-8).

bomless-bat-oem-codepage · redirected-ps-output-mojibake · oss-outfile-bom · tee-object-utf16 · python-subprocess-locale-encoding · bom-less-ps1-cp949 · ps51-vs-7-split

PS 5.1 wrapper around native stderr lines when redirected under strict error preference.

native-stderr-errorrecord

-File refused a file lacking the .ps1 extension.

ps-file-extension-dispatch

Parameter binding failure — often an alias hijack or interpolated/mangled arguments.

utf8-bom-still-breaks-grep · curl-alias · english-and-not-separator · piped-iex-drops-params · ps51-vs-7-split

PowerShell parser rejection — e.g. && on 5.1.

actions-default-shell · ps51-no-and-and

StrictMode throw on missing property access.

strictmode-missing-property

Execution policy refused to run a script file.

execution-policy-file-block · npm-ps1-not-comspec

The user’s interactive session terminates because script text ran in-session (iex + exit).

irm-iex-kills-host

A CLI reports prose words as unknown flags because the shell split one argument into many.

prose-as-unknown-flags

StrictMode ‘variable cannot be retrieved’ from unintended string interpolation.

dq-regex-interpolates