Leading backslash in path that includes spaces during --import causes help-text

[jarrodsfarrell]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5247]

WSL Version

2.3.26.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Issue

Origin issue: nix-community/NixOS-WSL#606

wsl --import NixOSTest $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
[help-text output]

wsl --import NixOSTest $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
Import in progress, this may take a few minutes.

Another user was able to do it with a leading backslash, so there might be something specific on my machine that's causing this weird behavior.

PowerShell Version: 5.1.19041.5247

[github-actions]

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How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The script will output the path of the log file once done.

If this is a networking issue, please use collect-networking-logs.ps1, following the instructions here

Once completed please upload the output files to this Github issue.

Click here for more info on logging
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View similar issues

Please view the issues below to see if they solve your problem, and if the issue describes your problem please consider closing this one and thumbs upping the other issue to help us prioritize it!

Closed similar issues:

• Invalid command line argument: -–import (#11126), similarity score: 0.73
• wsl --import/--export does not handle paths with spaces or quoted paths correctly (#3932), similarity score: 0.71

Note: You can give me feedback by thumbs upping or thumbs downing this comment.

[jarrodsfarrell]

WslLogs-2024-12-15_22-56-27.zip

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.3.26.0

[elsaco]

Didn't repro on WSL 2.4.5:

PS C:\Users\elsaco\Downloads> wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
The operation completed successfully.

PS C:\Users\elsaco\Downloads> ls $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS

    Directory: C:\Users\elsaco\NixOS

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a---          12/15/2024  8:18 PM     2260729856 ext4.vhdx

[jarrodsfarrell]

@elsaco Weird. But a thing I'm noticing is everyone who offered does not have a space in their USERPROFILE whereas mine does since it's my full name including it's space.

So I picked a path that doesn't contain a space on my other disk.

wsl --import NixOSTest G:\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
Import in progress, this may take a few minutes.

It's a strange edge-case which I don't think is intentional.

[github-actions]

Logs are required for review from WSL team

If this a feature request, please reply with '/feature'. If this is a question, reply with '/question'.
Otherwise please attach logs by following the instructions below, your issue will not be reviewed unless they are added. These logs will help us understand what is going on in your machine.

How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The script will output the path of the log file once done.

If this is a networking issue, please use collect-networking-logs.ps1, following the instructions here

Once completed please upload the output files to this Github issue.

Click here for more info on logging
If you choose to email these logs instead of attaching to the bug, please send them to wsl-gh-logs@microsoft.com with the number of the github issue in the subject, and in the message a link to your comment in the github issue and reply with '/emailed-logs'.

View similar issues

Please view the issues below to see if they solve your problem, and if the issue describes your problem please consider closing this one and thumbs upping the other issue to help us prioritize it!

Open similar issues:

• Leading backslash in path during --import causes help-text (#12383), similarity score: 0.99

Closed similar issues:

• wsl --import/--export does not handle paths with spaces or quoted paths correctly (#3932), similarity score: 0.74
• Invalid command line argument: -–import (#11126), similarity score: 0.71

Note: You can give me feedback by thumbs upping or thumbs downing this comment.

[jarrodsfarrell]

Shoo. Be appeased with the same file: WslLogs-2024-12-15_22-56-27.zip

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.3.26.0

[OneBlue]

@elsaco Weird. But a thing I'm noticing is everyone who offered does not have a space in their USERPROFILE whereas mine does since it's my full name including it's space.

If $USERPROFILE has a space in it, then what you're seeing is unfortunately the expected behavior since that would split the path into two arguments before calling wsl. To work around this the simplest would be always quote arguments that might contain spaces:

wsl --import NixOSTest "$env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\" nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2

[jarrodsfarrell]

@OneBlue That's the thing: I tried that in the various incantations to figure out why the command was failing. I did, verbatim, try:

wsl --import NixOSTest "$env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\" nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2

But it still failed. It also seems like PowerShell is a bit intelligent to notice cases like $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ should be concat'd as a single string since this invocation (note the missing leading backslash):

wsl --import NixOSTest $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2

Will work as expected.

[jarrodsfarrell]

For posterity, I did expand the variable to my USERPROFILE path. So this incantation will fail as well:

wsl --import NixOSTest "C:\Users\Jarrod Farrell\NixOS\" nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2