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Windows sandbox: one PATH folder whose permissions can't be read breaks every later helper start

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
rust, typescript
Domain
desktop, security

Research direction

Read win.rs around RecoveryRecord::undo (1216–1290), recover_abandoned_runs (1293–1335), and the grant logic (1588–1594, 1688–1708). Start by running the Rust tests for sandbox recovery; the issue requests a test where one failed undo does not prevent other records from recovering. Done means access-denied revocation is handled safely and recovery continues per record, quarantining records after repeated failures.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug platform: windows priority: medium severity: high

Found in the 2026-10-07 code review (traced through the code; not reproduced with a real folder that denies reading its permissions). Related to #152, which has a different trigger.

Problem

  • run records every existing read_only path in record.granted before granting, and ignores grant failures for non-required paths (win.rs:1588-1594, 1688-1708).
  • RecoveryRecord::undo (win.rs:1216-1290) calls edit_acl(path, sid, 0, Revoke) for each one. That starts with GetNamedSecurityInfoW and returns Err when the permissions can't be read.
  • The record is kept, and DeleteAppContainerProfile is skipped. On the next start, recover_abandoned_runs (win.rs:1293-1335) hits the same error, serve sends Error{id:null}, and the helper exits.

Scenario

PATH contains a folder that exists but whose permissions the user can't read (for example an admin's tool folder added machine-wide, or a restricted share). After the first sandboxed command, every sandboxed command fails with "cannot read the permissions of X". This lasts until the user deletes the record under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Patch\sandbox-recovery by hand.

Fix

  • When revoking, treat ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED from GetNamedSecurityInfoW as "nothing to undo". Without READ_CONTROL/WRITE_DAC the grant could never have been applied.
  • Recover each record on its own: log a failure, keep going with the other records, and quarantine a record after N failed attempts instead of aborting the helper.
  • Rust test: one record whose undo fails, with the other records still recovered.
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
2
Forks
2
Avg merge
5h 52m
Merged PRs (30d)
18

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