Bug in curl 8.17.0-1?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2025-11-19 06:47, Goltz, James (NIH/CIT) [E] via Cygwin wrote:
> Upon (finally) coming back from the government shutdown, I found a script I wrote that uses curl had stopped working.  I was able to trace it back to curl's behavior with --netrc-file.
> As of 8.17.0-1 (2025-11-09):
>    --netrc-file full-path/netrc-file does not work
>    --netrc-file netrc-file works, *if* netrc-file is in the current directory
> I've confirmed via rollback that 8.16.0-1 works as it did previously.  Curl 8.16.0-1 is able to find the netrc file using its full path.
> Has anyone else encountered this?
I only currently use that file in my Cygwin home dir to provide my email address 
for Anonymous logins if such are required and honoured nowadays.

No message with default ~/.netrc but using --netrc-file gives [elided]:

$ curl --verbose --netrc-file ~/.netrc ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/
* Couldn't find host ftp.gnu.org in the /home/.../.netrc file; using defaults
...

same with $HOME/.netrc etc, so no obvious issues.

Run `which -a curl` to see which `curl` command is being run from where with 
what options?
Run your `curl` command with --verbose to get a diagnostic trace in case there 
are issues.

Do you have the HOME env var set to your Cygwin home directory?
Do you have a Cygwin home directory and have you tried using .netrc there?

Do you have a NETRC env var set to the Cygwin path of the file?
Used 1st as of 8.16.0 - except --netrc-file says that overrides all other ways! 
That is mutually exclusive with --netrc, and its opposite --netrc-optional, 
which allows --netrc-file to not be used, otherwise it is used and must be correct!

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher  but when there is no more to cut
                                 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry