home‐manager - kachick/dotfiles GitHub Wiki

File conflict even if enabled backupFileExtension

If you faced to

× home-manager-kachick.service - Home Manager environment for kachick
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/home-manager-kachick.service; enabled; preset: ignored)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2025-05-20 12:54:43 JST; 263ms ago
 Invocation: 9eb47057700b4d23a8e56a18e10cf5ae
    Process: 4285 ExecStart=/nix/store/8axxcgpnr78xkhy46yy2dxf5nwjwswv8-hm-setup-env /nix/store/8nbiaf1zmsd5jghl97hgz0sqz9ii1c5i-home-manager-generation (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 4285 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
         IP: 0B in, 0B out
         IO: 0B read, 0B written
   Mem peak: 6.3M
        CPU: 244ms

 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]: Please do one of the following:
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]: - Move or remove the above files and try again.
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]: - In standalone mode, use 'home-manager switch -b backup' to back up
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]:   files automatically.
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]: - When used as a NixOS or nix-darwin module, set
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]:     'home-manager.backupFileExtension'
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]:   to, for example, 'backup' and rebuild.
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae systemd[1]: home-manager-kachick.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae systemd[1]: home-manager-kachick.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
 5月 20 12:54:43 algae systemd[1]: Failed to start Home Manager environment for kachick.
warning: error(s) occurred while switching to the new configuration

The log is not kind until merging https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/pull/5495
However you can detect it by

> journalctl -u "home-manager-$USER.service" -b -xe --grep clobbered
May 20 12:54:43 algae hm-activate-kachick[4310]: Existing file '/home/kachick/.config/xdg-terminals.list.backup' would be clobbered by backing up '/home/kachick/.config/xdg-terminals.list'
May 20 12:54:11 algae hm-activate-kachick[1355]: Existing file '/home/kachick/.config/xdg-terminals.list.backup' would be clobbered by backing up '/home/kachick/.config/xdg-terminals.list'