Anchor build failing with "Safety checks failed: Failed to get program path" despite correct program ID

Question

I'm trying to build an Anchor program but getting the following error:

anchor build
   Compiling jackcoins v0.1.0 (/home/webskitters/projects WS/jackcoins/jackcoins/programs/jackcoins)
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 2.23s
   Compiling jackcoins v0.1.0 (/home/webskitters/projects WS/jackcoins/jackcoins/programs/jackcoins)
error: custom attribute panicked
 --> programs/jackcoins/src/lib.rs:8:1
  |
8 | #[program]
  | ^^^^^^^^^^
  |
  = help: message: Safety checks failed: Failed to get program path

What I've Verified

1. Program ID matches in all locations:

   • declare_id! in lib.rs matches "BQtK93ZPivZGB3AUH9BBhmgMyvSYxZvzBQH5jR8KHo9f"
   • Same ID exists in target/deploy/jackcoins.json
   • Anchor.toml has correct program ID

2. File Structure:

   • Program files are in the correct location
   • Keypair exists in target/deploy/
   • Project follows standard Anchor workspace structure

3. Attempted Solutions:

   • Cleaned and rebuilt project
   • Removed target/ and .anchor/ directories
   • Verified all file permissions
   • Tried building with explicit program name

Environment Details

• Anchor version: anchor-cli 0.29.0
• Solana version: solana-cli 1.18.24 (src:7ba2a0e9; feat:3241752014, client:Agave)
• OS: Ubuntu
• Project: Token program with two SPL tokens

Code

Here's the relevant part of my lib.rs:

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
use anchor_spl::associated_token::AssociatedToken;
use anchor_spl::token::{self, Mint, Token, TokenAccount};

declare_id!("BQtK93ZPivZGB3AUH9BBhmgMyvSYxZvzBQH5jR8KHo9f");
pub const JCKP_DECIMALS: u8 = 9;

#[program]
pub mod jackcoins {
    use super::*;
    pub const JCK_DECIMALS: u8 = 9;
    const INITIAL_SUPPLY: u64 = 6_000_000_000;
    // ... rest of program implementation
}

Questions

1. What could be causing this error despite having correct program ID configuration?
2. Are there any specific permissions or path requirements I should check?
3. Are there any Anchor workspace configuration files I should verify?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Looking at the anchor code here is what it sais about this error: https://github.com/coral-xyz/anchor/blob/master/lang/syn/src/idl/program.rs#L162

let program_path = get_program_path();
    if program_path.is_err() {
        // Getting the program path can fail in the following scenarios:
        //
        // - Anchor CLI version is incompatible with the current version
        // - The error is coming from Rust Analyzer when the user has `idl-build` feature enabled,
        // likely due to enabling all features (https://github.com/coral-xyz/anchor/issues/3042)
        //
        // For the first case, we have a warning when the user is using different versions of the
        // lang and CLI crate. For the second case, users would either have to disable the
        // `idl-build` feature, or define the program path environment variable in Rust Analyzer
        // settings.
        //
        // Given this feature is not a critical one, and it works by default with `anchor build`,
        // we can fail silently in the case of an error rather than panicking.
        return Ok(());
    }

So probably either the installed CLI version is incompatible with the current version or it has to do with the idl-build feature and you need to redefine your program path environment variable.