MY ENTIRE HOME DIRECTORY WAS OBLITERATED BECAUSE OF THIS EXTENSION!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!

[dogganon]

Description

TWO YEARS OF DATA. ALL GONE!!! WITH JUST ONE CLICK OF 'PREVIEW' OR TWO!

USERS BEWARE!!! THIS IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT!!!

#124
jupyterlab/jupyterlab#7520
jupyterlab/jupyterlab#11662

AND NONE OF THE ISSUES ABOVE WERE PROPERLY ADDRESSED!!!

@ktaletsk

Reproduce

0. Use jupyterlab-collaboration to share the workspace and have two people join the sharing session.
1. Go to some nested directory inside your home directory.
2. Click on some .tex file.
3. Click on "Preview."
4. Voila! NO MORE FILES IN UR HOME DIRECTORY. WT*!!!

Expected behavior

Context

• Operating System and version:
• Browser and version:
• JupyterLab version: v4.3.4

The latest versions of jupyter-collaboration and jupyterlab-latex were installed and enabled.

Troubleshoot Output

Paste the output from running `jupyter troubleshoot` from the command line here.
You may want to sanitize the paths in the output.

Command Line Output

Paste the output from your command line running `jupyter lab` here, use `--debug` if possible.

Browser Output

Paste the output from your browser Javascript console here, if applicable.

[wkvolkman]

Yes, this just happened to me. Time to check the code for something that attempts to clean-up and nails the jupyter root.. I luckily had made a backup however lost multiple days worth of work.

[BigFlagBurito]

I was able to reproduce it and then directly uninstalled jupyterlab-latex.
I hope that the main problem will be found and fixed quickly.

[BigFlagBurito]

I have tried a little and the error occurs even without jupyterlab-collaboration.

1. create a .tex in the home directory
2. create a .tex in a folder in the home directory
3. open both .tex and click on Preview for both
4. reload the browser tab
5. all files are deleted

The error is triggered by this code.

jupyterlab-latex/jupyterlab_latex/build.py

Lines 51 to 57 in 58abc9c

	if cleanup:
	after = set(glob.glob("*"))
	for fn in set(after-keep_files):
	if not os.path.isdir(fn):
	os.remove(fn)
	else:
	shutil.rmtree(fn)

Here is the extract of my log file. After I had added logs:

ServerApp] workdir: /home/jovyan
ServerApp] before value - before yield execute: {'deep 1', 'untitled.tex', 'untitled.pdf', 'untitled.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] Using TeX Live (or compatible distribution) for LaTeX compilation.
ServerApp] workdir: /home/jovyan/deep 1
ServerApp] before value - before yield execute: {'untitled 2.tex', 'deep 2', 'untitled 2.pdf', 'untitled 2.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] Using TeX Live (or compatible distribution) for LaTeX compilation.
...
ServerApp] before value - after yield execute: {'deep 1', 'untitled.tex', 'untitled.pdf', 'untitled.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] after value: {'untitled 2.aux', 'untitled 2.synctex(busy)', 'untitled 2.tex', 'deep 2', 'untitled 2.log', 'untitled 2.pdf', 'untitled 2.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] set value: {'untitled 2.tex', 'untitled 2.aux', 'deep 2', 'untitled 2.log', 'untitled 2.pdf', 'untitled 2.synctex(busy)', 'untitled 2.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.tex
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.aux
ServerApp] Remove dir: deep 2
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.log
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.pdf
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.synctex(busy)
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled 2.synctex.gz
...
ServerApp] before value - after yield execute: {'untitled 2.tex', 'deep 2', 'untitled 2.pdf', 'untitled 2.synctex.gz'}
ServerApp] after value: {'untitled.log', 'untitled.synctex.gz', 'deep 1', 'untitled.aux', 'untitled.tex', 'untitled.pdf'}
ServerApp] set value: {'untitled.log', 'untitled.synctex.gz', 'deep 1', 'untitled.aux', 'untitled.tex', 'untitled.pdf'}
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled.log
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled.synctex.gz
ServerApp] Remove dir: deep 1
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled.aux
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled.tex
ServerApp] Remove file: untitled.pdf

[dogganon]

@BigFlagBurito Looking at the code, it appears that there are serious flaws in the cleanup logic: Failure to change working directory aside - Blacklist policy by default? Seriously? What happens if some other files are created while the command is running? BAM they get deleted AS WELL.

I am genuinely shocked at how bad this is. There is no way this project is ready for production, not in a thousand years, unless the entire code base is burnt to ground and rewritten from scratch by competent, responsible people.

[applutan]

I have to say - and I'm really really reluctant to blame jupyterlab because it's so unbelievable - that this has happened to me on two different machines. One is an ageing raspberry pi 3b, and the most recent is on a raspberry pi 5. So there's that commonality.

The first occasion (pi 3b) was over a year ago and the python system was baked on to the machine - so no virtual envs. The disappearance of everything was total and completely inexplicable.

Most recently - and it has just happened again within the past half hour (luckily I have duplicates of the directory tree and take frequent backups because 'fool me twice') it's under a python virtual env.

All the destruction seems to be associated with a latex error. Usually the directory tree didn't get wiped until I acknowledge/dismissed the (info devoid) latex error report pane in jupyterlab, but today it had already all gone even before the panes appear (which is just weird). The whole lot disappeared as I loaded the lab page.

Completely amazing. I can copy the entire python env back over, reload the page, watch it all disappear, ad nauseam. I've tried turning on log files but if they're writing stuff I don't know where it is, but only where it's supposed to be (~/.jupyter/logs) - which steadfastly remains empty.

Systemctl status reports

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/p>
Mar 25 11:59:48 oronia jupyter[25297]: [E 2025-03-25 11:59:48.096 ServerApp]