Failed to retrieve search context: EvalError: symf failed: Error: spawn ENAMETOOLONG

Hello,
Probably after extension update I got this error for all prompts.

Failed to retrieve search context: EvalError: symf failed: Error: spawn ENAMETOOLONG

I’m not able to use cody anymore in my vs code. Can you propose fix please?

I tried reboot, also switch to pre-release version. But it didn’t help.

Hey @deeppresentation

Please completely de-install and re-install Cody. The issue seems related to the ‘symf’ binary for indexing the local repository.

If you’ll run into any issue, I appreciate feedback.

Thank you.

Hey @PriNova,
Thank you. I found that that is only happening when there is a all project placeholder in prompt. Don’t I loose some cody knowledge about a project by uninstalling it?

You will may loose the chat history. The last time I uninstalled and re-installed it, the chat history remained.

1 Like

The same thing is happening to me too. I have uninstalled python, cody and vscode. I have cleaned all the user directories of these programs and reinstalled from scratch and I still have the same problem. It’s independent of the project I’m in.

El log es:
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.extension/savedLogin: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”:
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:10:49.960Z”
}
█ auth Authenticating to https://sourcegraph.com/
█ ModelsService User model preferences changed: {“defaults”:{“chat”:“anthropic::2023-06-01::claude-3.5-sonnet”,“edit”:“anthropic::2023-06-01::claude-3.5-sonnet”,“autocomplete”:“fireworks::v1::deepseek-coder-v2-lite-base”},“selected”:{}}
█ ChatsController:constructor init
█ auth Authentication succeed to endpoint https://sourcegraph.com/
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.auth/connected: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”: [
{
“key”: “tier”,
“value”: 0
}
]
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:10:51.322Z”
}
█ SymfRunner unsafeEnsureIndex: file:///k%3A/PyComicRack {
“options”: {
“retryIfLastAttemptFailed”: false,
“ignoreExisting”: false
}
}
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshing configuration
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshed: {“codyEnabled”:true,“chatEnabled”:true,“autoCompleteEnabled”:true,“customCommandsEnabled”:true,“attributionEnabled”:false,“attribution”:“none”,“smartContextWindowEnabled”:true,“modelsAPIEnabled”:false,“latestSupportedCompletionsStreamAPIVersion”:9}
█ Autocomplete:initialized using “dotcom-feature-flags”: “fireworks::deepseek-coder-v2-lite-base”
█ ModelsService new models API enabled
█ auth Authenticating to https://sourcegraph.com/
█ auth Authentication succeed to endpoint https://sourcegraph.com/
█ ModelsService ModelsData changed: 21 primary models
█ UpstreamHealth Ping took 174ms (Gateway: 263ms): “url=https://sourcegraph.com/healthz status=200 cf-ray=92e1cc741c272f9f-MAD”
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshing configuration
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshed: {“codyEnabled”:true,“chatEnabled”:true,“autoCompleteEnabled”:true,“customCommandsEnabled”:true,“attributionEnabled”:false,“attribution”:“none”,“smartContextWindowEnabled”:true,“modelsAPIEnabled”:false,“latestSupportedCompletionsStreamAPIVersion”:9}
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshing configuration
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshed: {“codyEnabled”:true,“chatEnabled”:true,“autoCompleteEnabled”:true,“customCommandsEnabled”:true,“attributionEnabled”:false,“attribution”:“none”,“smartContextWindowEnabled”:true,“modelsAPIEnabled”:false,“latestSupportedCompletionsStreamAPIVersion”:9}
█ ChatController updateViewConfig: {
“uiKindIsWeb”: false,
“serverEndpoint”: “https://sourcegraph.com/”,
“endpointHistory”: [
https://sourcegraph.com/
],
“experimentalNoodle”: false,
“smartApply”: true,
“hasEditCapability”: false,
“webviewType”: “sidebar”,
“multipleWebviewsEnabled”: true,
“internalDebugContext”: false,
“allowEndpointChange”: true,
“experimentalPromptEditorEnabled”: false,
“experimentalAgenticChatEnabled”: false,
“attribution”: “none”
}
█ ChatController updateClientConfig: {
“codyEnabled”: true,
“chatEnabled”: true,
“autoCompleteEnabled”: true,
“customCommandsEnabled”: true,
“attributionEnabled”: false,
“attribution”: “none”,
“smartContextWindowEnabled”: true,
“modelsAPIEnabled”: false,
“latestSupportedCompletionsStreamAPIVersion”: 9,
“notices”: ,
“omniBoxEnabled”: true,
“codeSearchEnabled”: true
}
█ ChatController updateViewConfig: {
“uiKindIsWeb”: false,
“serverEndpoint”: “https://sourcegraph.com/”,
“endpointHistory”: [
https://sourcegraph.com/
],
“experimentalNoodle”: false,
“smartApply”: true,
“hasEditCapability”: false,
“webviewType”: “sidebar”,
“multipleWebviewsEnabled”: true,
“internalDebugContext”: false,
“allowEndpointChange”: true,
“experimentalPromptEditorEnabled”: false,
“experimentalAgenticChatEnabled”: false,
“attribution”: “none”
}
█ ChatController handleUserMessageSubmission: traceId: 6d6af1b3060ce994382a33a9a2aa7618
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.humanMessageEditor/submit: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”: [
{
“key”: “isFirstMessage”,
“value”: 1
},
{
“key”: “isEdit”,
“value”: 0
},
{
“key”: “messageLength”,
“value”: 35
},
{
“key”: “contextItems”,
“value”: 2
},
{
“key”: “intent”,
“value”: 0
},
{
“key”: “tier”,
“value”: 1
}
],
“billingMetadata”: {
“product”: “cody”,
“category”: “billable”
}
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:15:33.497Z”
}
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.chat-question/submitted: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”: [
{
“key”: “recordsPrivateMetadataTranscript”,
“value”: 1
},
{
“key”: “isPublicRepo”,
“value”: 0
},
{
“key”: “isCommand”,
“value”: 0
},
{
“key”: “sessionIdEpoch”,
“value”: 1744283450000
},
{
“key”: “tier”,
“value”: 1
}
],
“privateMetadata”: {
“chatModel”: “anthropic::2024-10-22::claude-3-7-sonnet-latest”,
“requestID”: “06c9748d-b495-4946-b156-485030d1ff2b”,
“sessionID”: “Thu, 10 Apr 2025 11:10:50 GMT”,
“traceId”: “6d6af1b3060ce994382a33a9a2aa7618”,
“promptText”: “src/PyComicRack.py PyComicRack hola”
},
“billingMetadata”: {
“product”: “cody”,
“category”: “billable”
}
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:15:33.506Z”
}
█ Completions:onComplete duration:“926ms” stopReason:“undefined” outputChannelId:“03b889e8-bd78-4194-b882-434b66721e68”: {
“completion”: “PyComicRack: Python script for comic book management\n”
}
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.chat.customTitle/generated: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”: [
{
“key”: “titleLength”,
“value”: 53
},
{
“key”: “inputLength”,
“value”: 35
},
{
“key”: “tier”,
“value”: 1
}
],
“privateMetadata”: {
“requestID”: “06c9748d-b495-4946-b156-485030d1ff2b”,
“model”: “google::v1::gemini-2.0-flash-lite”,
“traceId”: “6d6af1b3060ce994382a33a9a2aa7618”
},
“billingMetadata”: {
“product”: “cody”,
“category”: “billable”
}
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:15:34.421Z”
}
█ Completions:onComplete duration:“720ms” stopReason:“undefined” outputChannelId:“6a758fc6-1e57-4dfd-9447-46d2b9826dbb”: {
“completion”: “hola”
}
█ ChatController resolveContext > symf /k:/PyComicRack (start)
█ symf using downloaded symf “c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\symf-v0.0.16-x86_64-windows”
█ ChatController: postError Failed to retrieve search context: EvalError: symf failed: Error: spawn ENAMETOOLONG
█ SymfRunner reindexIfStale: k:\PyComicRack
█ SymfRunner unsafeEnsureIndex: file:///k%3A/PyComicRack {
“options”: {
“retryIfLastAttemptFailed”: true,
“ignoreExisting”: false
}
}
█ symf using downloaded symf “c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\symf-v0.0.16-x86_64-windows”
█ SymfRunner statIndex: c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\symf-v0.0.16-x86_64-windows --index-root c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\indexroot\k\PyComicRack status k:\PyComicRack
█ symf using downloaded symf “c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\symf-v0.0.16-x86_64-windows”
█ SymfRunner running symf: c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\symf-v0.0.16-x86_64-windows --index-root c:\Users\tomas\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\sourcegraph.cody-ai\symf\indexroot\k\PyComicRack query --scopes k:\PyComicRack --fmt json --boosted-keywords “hola” hola
█ ChatController resolveContext > symf /k:/PyComicRack (end)
█ telemetry-v2 recordEvent: cody.userMenu/open: {
“parameters”: {
“version”: 0,
“metadata”: [
{
“key”: “tier”,
“value”: 1
}
]
},
“timestamp”: “2025-04-10T11:17:48.639Z”
}
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshing configuration
█ ClientConfigSingleton refreshed: {“codyEnabled”:true,“chatEnabled”:true,“autoCompleteEnabled”:true,“customCommandsEnabled”:true,“attributionEnabled”:false,“attribution”:“none”,“smartContextWindowEnabled”:true,“modelsAPIEnabled”:false,“latestSupportedCompletionsStreamAPIVersion”:9}

This happen to me today even reinstall the extension in VS Code or clean chat history.

Hey @ansondev On what OS are you on? There might be an issue with too long file path names. Some OS’es restricting the length of the path. For example, Windows is restricting the path name length to 256 characters.

This happened to me yesterday and is still persisting today. I’m on Windows 11, VS Code Insiders. I tried uninstalling the extension and reinstalling, I deleted the symf folder to regenerate it, and I’ve rebooted the editor. I tried both the release and pre-release version.

I did do some testing slowly removing context mentions and I noticed if I removed the whole workspace folder context, it worked just fine.

Yes, it caused by the limited length on Windows. I open the Vscode at lower level folder then it works. I did export and remove the history since this issue, is there any way to import back the history json?