go-critic/ruleguard: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt

[ldez]

The issue is a kind of documentation about this topic.

Description of the problem

• Before v1.49.0, the load of the ruleguard (go-critic) rules happens in an init() function and through a panic if there is a problem (I will explain the problem after).

$ golangci-lint run
panic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt

goroutine 1 [running]:
github.com/go-critic/go-critic/checkers.init.9()
    github.com/go-critic/go-critic@v0.6.1/checkers/checkers.go:58 +0x4b4

• After v1.49.0, the load of the ruleguard (go-critic) rules happens only when go-critic is enabled, and it will produce a simple error. From my experience, the error should disappear with this release due to changes inside ruleguard and go-critic.

$ golangci-lint run
[ERROR] go-critic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt: setting an explicit GOROOT can fix this problem.

The problem

The error happens only when ruleguard (go-critic) is not able to load rules.

ruleguard (go-critic) uses GOROOT to load rules.

If the value of GOROOT is empty, ruleguard will fallback to the GOROOT from the Go context but this Go context can be wrong.

go-critic issues

• panic in load embedded ruleguard rules: can't load fmt go-critic/go-critic#1126
• Panic after upgrade golangci-lint to v1.43.0 go-critic/go-critic#1157
• panic under Go 1.18 go-critic/go-critic#1210 (duplicate)
• Support generics for Go 1.18 go-critic/go-critic#1193 (duplicate)
• Transform init function in embedded_rules.go to an exported function go-critic/go-critic#1218

Previous issues

• go1.17 arm64 fails with can't load fmt error (>= 1.45.0) #2673
• Panic since update to v1.43.0 (load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt) #2374
• go1.17 arm64 fails with can't load fmt error (>= 1.45.0) #2673
• go-critic/ruleguard: compatibility with Go 1.18 #2414
• go-critic: checkers.init panic with go1.19beta1 #2922
• Go 1.19 panic: can't load fmt #3057
• Panics with go1.19 #3053

The solution?

To avoid this problem you can define explicitly the GOROOT environment variable.

$ go env GOROOT                                            
/usr/local/go

$ export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
# or
export "GOROOT=$(go env GOROOT)"

[biggianteye]

• Before v1.49.0
• After v1.49.0

Is this a typo? The latest version at the time of writing this is v1.48.0.

[ldez]

no, I'm talking about the next version (v1.49.0). I didn't use the future tense just to be descriptive.

[biggianteye]

no, I'm talking about the next version (v1.49.0). I didn't use the future tense just to be descriptive.

Ah, I see. Now that I look more closely I can see that your changes are in master, ready for the next version. Makes sense now. Thanks.

[cristaloleg]

I see v0.6.1 in your log but AFAIR v0.6.4 fixed everything (https://github.com/go-critic/go-critic/releases/tag/v0.6.4) isn't it?

[ldez]

The logs are related to golangci-lint before v1.49.0.

[vfaronov]

This error isn’t fixed for me neither by 1.49.0 nor by explicitly setting GOROOT:

$ golangci-lint version
golangci-lint has version 1.49.0 built from cc2d97f3 on 2022-08-24T10:24:37Z

$ export GOROOT=$(go env GOROOT)

$ head -1 $GOROOT/src/fmt/doc.go
// Copyright 2009 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.

$ golangci-lint run --disable-all -E gocritic
ERRO [linter] gocritic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt: setting an explicit GOROOT can fix this problem. 

[phillbaker]

I saw this when moving from x86_64 to arm64 (m1 machine). I found this helpful to uninstall the old golangci installed via homebrew: https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions/3437

[pawel-slusarczyk]

Still getting this error with GOROOT pointing to my Go 1.20.4 SDK and with golangci-lint v1.52.2.

➜  project git:(master) ✗ ./bin/golangci-lint --version
panic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt

goroutine 1 [running]:
github.com/go-critic/go-critic/checkers.init.22()
        github.com/go-critic/go-critic@v0.6.3/checkers/embedded_rules.go:47 +0x4b4

Okay, actually it helped when I rebuild the binary of the vendored golangci-lint package. This step must be obvious for more frequent Go users, but I forgot about it.

[Liooo]

I'm seeing this error even when $GOROOT is set, and seems like 8f8c68a with go version 1.20 is somehow causing this on my machine.

.pre-commit-config.yml

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/golangci/golangci-lint
#   rev: commit                                       go 1.20.4     go 1.19.8
#  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#   rev: 8bbb6555e3d9348e320674fc0952eb8d0e5f6daf #     #3107        passes      <= latest master
#   ...
#   rev: 8f8c68ab8896d1317813081f20ff47831503e167 #     #3107         #3711      <= the ruleguard error happens from here
#   rev: 252ae9f2c92c1fed287d8721e1efdd0b72ca80ed #     #3711         #3711
#   ...
#   rev: da04413a8a1eefb8c10161c9f2b558138d01815c #     #3711         #3711       <= v1.52.2
    hooks:
    - id: golangci-lint
      language_version: 1.19.8 # or 1.20.4

Originally I've been trying to solve #3711, which I could confirm being fixed in the latest master (by #3835). But from 8f8c68a with go 1.20, I get the ruleguard error described in this issue.

---

UPDATE

This was pre-commit thing.
Inside pre-commit somehow the GOROOT is overwritten, and the workaround is:

$ export PRECOMMIT_GOROOT=$(go env GOROOT)

then,

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/golangci/golangci-lint
     hooks:
     - id: golangci-lint
       language_version: 1.20.4
       entry: bash -c 'GOROOT=$PRECOMMIT_GOROOT golangci-lint run'

[haroongelato]

I fixed this issue by upgrading my golangci-lint version to 1.54.2.

[dviljoen]

I just ran into this when upgrading from go1.18.1 to go1.20.11. I also upgraded my golangci-lint to 1.55.2. As described above, I tried setting my GOROOT. No luck.

panic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt

goroutine 1 [running]:
github.com/go-critic/go-critic/checkers.init.22()
        github.com/go-critic/go-critic@v0.6.3/checkers/embedded_rules.go:47 +0x4b4
panic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt

goroutine 1 [running]:
github.com/go-critic/go-critic/checkers.init.22()
        github.com/go-critic/go-critic@v0.6.3/checkers/embedded_rules.go:47 +0x4b4

[ns-saurabh]

I ran into this issue with go1.21 and golangci-lint 1.51. Moving golangci-lint to 1.55.2 fixed the issue.

[rmasclef]

hey there I do have this issue even with the latest version

Adding export GOROOT=$(go env GOROOT) to my .zshrc file doesn't seem to fix the issue.

---

golangci-lint version
golangci-lint has version 1.55.2 built with go1.21.3 from e3c2265 on 2023-11-02T21:40:02Z

golangci-lint run ./...
ERRO [linters_context] gocritic: load embedded ruleguard rules: rules/rules.go:13: can't load fmt: setting an explicit GOROOT can fix this problem.

go version
go version go1.21.6 darwin/arm64

go env
GO111MODULE='auto'
GOARCH='arm64'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/Users/rmasclef/Library/Caches/go-build'
GOENV='/Users/rmasclef/Library/Application Support/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFLAGS=''
GOHOSTARCH='arm64'
GOHOSTOS='darwin'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMODCACHE='/Users/rmasclef/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY='github.com/reezogit'
GONOSUMDB='github.com/reezogit'
GOOS='darwin'
GOPATH='/Users/rmasclef/go'
GOPRIVATE='github.com/reezogit'
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/opt/homebrew/Cellar/go/1.21.6/libexec'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/opt/homebrew/Cellar/go/1.21.6/libexec/pkg/tool/darwin_arm64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.21.6'
GCCGO='gccgo'
AR='ar'
CC='cc'
CXX='c++'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
GOMOD='/Users/rmasclef/Documents/work/reezocar/repositories/backend/reezoback/go.mod'
GOWORK=''
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -arch arm64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/var/folders/km/qbnnqyrs6g92mrrqstg2gk8r0000gn/T/go-build1707879524=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common'