Failed to read the configuration file. Try to run the application with admin permission

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

Describe the bug

A freshly installed crowdin (via brew as well as via crowdin-cli.zip and the install script) fails with

/opt/homebrew/opt/crowdin@4/bin/crowdin download sources
❌ Failed to read the configuration file. Try to run the application with admin permission
❌ class java.lang.String cannot be cast to class java.util.Map (java.lang.String and java.util.Map are in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')

I have absolutely no idea what the problem might be here.

The directory has drwxr-xr-x and the crowdin file -rw-r--r-- which should IHMO be fine.

I also tested with the example crowdin.yml file which I expectecd to complain about a wrong project ID or api_token, but the error remains the same.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

brew install crowdin@4
/opt/homebrew/opt/crowdin@4/bin/crowdin -V # shows 4.1.1

cd folder_with_example_crowdin_file
/opt/homebrew/opt/crowdin@4/bin/crowdin pull --debug

Error:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to read the configuration file. Try to run the application with admin permission
at com.crowdin.cli.utils.file.FileUtils.readYamlFile(FileUtils.java:39)
at com.crowdin.cli.properties.PropertiesBuilders.buildPropertiesWithFiles(PropertiesBuilders.java:17)
at com.crowdin.cli.commands.picocli.ActCommandWithFiles.getProperties(ActCommandWithFiles.java:25)
at com.crowdin.cli.commands.picocli.ActCommandWithFiles.getProperties(ActCommandWithFiles.java:11)
at com.crowdin.cli.commands.picocli.GenericActCommand.run(GenericActCommand.java:27)
at picocli.CommandLine.executeUserObject(CommandLine.java:2030)
at picocli.CommandLine.access$1500(CommandLine.java:148)
at picocli.CommandLine$RunLast.executeUserObjectOfLastSubcommandWithSameParent(CommandLine.java:2465)
at picocli.CommandLine$RunLast.handle(CommandLine.java:2457)
at picocli.CommandLine$RunLast.handle(CommandLine.java:2419)
at picocli.CommandLine$AbstractParseResultHandler.execute(CommandLine.java:2277)
at picocli.CommandLine$RunLast.execute(CommandLine.java:2421)
at picocli.CommandLine.execute(CommandLine.java:2174)
at com.crowdin.cli.commands.picocli.PicocliRunner.execute(PicocliRunner.java:38)
at com.crowdin.cli.Cli.main(Cli.java:16)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: class java.lang.String cannot be cast to class java.util.Map (java.lang.String and java.util.Map are in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')
at com.crowdin.cli.utils.file.FileUtils.readYamlFile(FileUtils.java:35)
... 14 more

Expected behavior
Run crowdin as expected

Environment:

• OS: MacOS
• Version 14.7.1
• java --version
  openjdk 23.0.1 2024-10-15
  OpenJDK Runtime Environment Homebrew (build 23.0.1)
  OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Homebrew (build 23.0.1, mixed mode, sharing)

Additional context
My config file works fine with the docker container:

docker run -ti --rm -v=$(pwd):/usr/crowdin-project crowdin/cli crowdin upload sources

[andrii-bodnar]

Hi @sven-hergenhahn-dmtech, could you please share your crowdin.yml configuration file?

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

Hi, as said, I also used the one provided by the documentation, that would be

"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "."
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com"

"preserve_hierarchy": true

"files": [
  {
    "source": "/locale/en/folder1/[0-2].txt",
    "translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/folder1/%original_file_name%"
  },
]

and my own one - adjusted a little bit for privacy:

"project_id": "104"
"api_token": "some.very.long.token"
"base_path": "."
"base_url": "https://mycompany.api.crowdin.com"
# "preserve_hierarchy": true
"files": [
  {
    "source": "/source.json",
    "translation": "/translations/%locale_with_underscore%.json",
  }
]

[andrii-bodnar]

@sven-hergenhahn-dmtech Thanks for the details! Looking at the error message, it seems like it's a YML reading error, but I just tried both of your configuration files and couldn't reproduce it.

Could you please try to recreate your config file and try the following syntax:

project_id: "projectId"
api_token: "personal-access-token"
base_path: "."
base_url: "https://api.crowdin.com"

preserve_hierarchy: true

files:
  - source: "/locale/en/folder1/[0-2].txt"
    translation: "/locale/%two_letters_code%/folder1/%original_file_name%"

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

did that, same result

[andrii-bodnar]

Does this happen with all CLI commands?

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

well, I now tried

• pull
• upload
• status
• task list
• config lint

want me to test more?

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

interestingly enough, when I delete/rename my crowdin.yml file, I get the same error. To me it seems like it does not detect the file at all...

[andrii-bodnar]

I think it might be using a different configuration file. Please check for example $HOME/.crowdin.yml or try to find out where it gets the configuration from.

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

/opt/homebrew/Cellar/crowdin@4/4.4.1/bin/crowdin config lint --config ./crowdin.yml --debug

also fails with the same error though

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

all right, there was an old $HOME/.crowdin.yml that seems to have broken everything, even when explicitely specifying the local one. It only containes a line

api_token:sometoken

and some comments

It works now, but I'd still cosider this a bug - specifically when providing a local config file as --config param, I'd expect the one in $HOME to be ignored.

Thanks for your help anyway

[andrii-bodnar]

Glad to hear this is resolved now!

The $HOME/.crowdin.yml configuration is loaded independently of the --config parameter, as it serves a different purpose - Split Project Configuration and API Credentials.

[sven-hergenhahn-dmtech]

Looking at https://crowdin.github.io/crowdin-cli/configuration#split-project-configuration-and-api-credentials, the file is supposed to contain api_token lines - only mine was missing quotes for the value.

Maybe it would be helpful to provide a better error message that also mentions all config files that were used to gather configuration information