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fasterq-dump error code 3 associated with directory name #1110

@NateyJay

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@NateyJay

Hello!

I've been encountering a problem on my macbook working with fasterq-dump (3.2.1), where I receive "error code 3" when producing fastq files in certain directories. This appears to be associated with unicode emojis I have in my folder names, but I can't resolve exactly why this is happening.

Here is how I can produce the error

First, i'm prefetching the data, this never causes an error.

nate@MyMac:~/🔬Research/🚸Colleagues$ prefetch SRR350925
2025-10-22T13:57:33 prefetch.3.2.1: 1) Resolving 'SRR350925'...
2025-10-22T13:57:35 prefetch.3.2.1: Current preference is set to retrieve SRA Lite files with simplified base quality scores
2025-10-22T13:57:36 prefetch.3.2.1: 1) Downloading 'SRR350925.sralite'...
2025-10-22T13:57:36 prefetch.3.2.1:  SRA Lite file is being retrieved
2025-10-22T13:57:36 prefetch.3.2.1:  Downloading via HTTPS...
2025-10-22T13:59:05 prefetch.3.2.1:  HTTPS download succeed
2025-10-22T13:59:06 prefetch.3.2.1:  'SRR350925.sralite' is valid: 254889781 bytes were streamed from 254889310
2025-10-22T13:59:06 prefetch.3.2.1: 1) 'SRR350925.sralite' was downloaded successfully

However, I get an error which seems to be associated with writing the data to my directory:

nate@MyMac:~/🔬Research/🚸Colleagues$ fasterq-dump SRR350925
spots read      : 4,990,511
reads read      : 9,981,022

=============================================================
An error occurred during processing.
A report was generated into the file '/Users/jax/ncbi_error_report.txt'.
If the problem persists, you may consider sending the file
to '[email protected]' for assistance.
=============================================================

fasterq-dump quit with error code 3

Subsequent fasterq-dump runs give errors in an unpredictable manner, seemingly dependent on my directory name, following the same workflow with prefetch.

nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🔬Research/🚸Another_dir$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # returns error 3
nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🔬Research/🚸B$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # returns error 3

nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🔬Research$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # works!
nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🚸B$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # works!
nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🔬Research/areallylongnamethatislikelytorunoverthebuffer$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # works!

nate@MyMac:~/Desktop/🔬Research/🔬different$ fasterq-dump SRR350925 # returns error 3

It appears that this is associated with having more than one unicode 6.0 characters in the path.

Has anyone seen this before?

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