parse error: failed to load include file due to file not found

[Cheer1]

Why can it not find the files to include?

kamil$ls
android  linux  macos
kamil$pwd
/home/kamil/.local/share/syncthing

I am pretty sure it is done right based on the docs:

Blockquote

• A pattern beginning with #include results in loading patterns from the named file. It is an error for a file to not exist or be included more than once. Note that while this can be used to include patterns from a file in a subdirectory, the patterns themselves are still relative to the synced folder root. Example: #include more-patterns.txt. ?

Any #include directives inside a file loaded by #include require paths specified relative to the directory containing the loaded file, rather than the synchronised root directory.

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

Because you’ve entered a (folder-)relative path when you presumably intended an absolute one

[Cheer1]

Is it not the other way around? This is definitely an absolute path.

[Cheer1]

So this is how it works? It has to be relative to the synced root folder…

If synced folder is ~/DCIM and patterns are in ~/DCIM/patterns then this is what relative means: #include patterns/some-patterns.txt.

Is this correct?

Any #include directives inside a file loaded by #include require paths specified relative to the directory containing the loaded file, rather than the synchronised root directory.

I’m not sure IIUC.

[239]

home/... is relative, /home/... is absolute

[Cheer1]

#include /home/kamil/Misc./syncthing/macos

Still gives the error:

2025-06-17 15:40:29: Error on folder "Audiobooks" (fhq44-qnawv): loading ignores: parse error: failed to load include file home/kamil/Misc./syncthing/macos: file not found

Note how the error says home/ but it’s actually /home/ in the ignore pattern? I tried /home/ before this post too and that didn’t do it.

Oh, and:

kamil$ls ~/Misc./syncthing  
android  linux  macos

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

Ah, you’re right, paths are always interpreted as folder relative. So you want something like ../../.local/share/whatever probably.

[Cheer1]

That is then home/kamil/.local/share/syncthing/pattern.txt with or without the / at the beginning, it does not matter. This does not work as I’ve shown above.

Am I to understand it’s a bug?

loading ignores: parse error: failed to load include file home/kamil/Misc./syncthing/macos.txt: file not found

Note: Here I updated macos to macos.txt to see if maybe the extension in the filename is mandatory.

[tomasz86 (Tomasz Wilczyński)]

What is the actual full path of the folder “Audiobooks”?

[Cheer1]

~/Media/audiobooks

[martinleben]

Then use ../../.local/share/syncthing/pattern.txt since include directives are always relative to the shared folder. Just as @calmh wrote above.

[Cheer1]

Huh?! This is literally it copy and paste. I am no newbie to computer and stuff but this puzzles me. Why is it literally ../../ instead of /home/kamil or ~/?

[martinleben]

Because the last two are not relative to ~/Media/audiobooks.

[Cheer1]

I finally understood this. In more human terms, it’s because ../../ actually changes directory one down:

kamil$cd ..
kamil$ls
audiobooks  podcasts
kamil$pwd
/home/kamil/Media
kamil$cd ..
kamil$pwd
/home/kamil

So since the shared folder is two directories up from home, you need to go two directories down in order to be at home again (hence ../../ and then specify the path you want.