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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"fs.cpSync with dereference: true does not dereference (regression in 22.17)","articleBody":"### Version\n\n22.17.1 and 22.17.0\n\n### Platform\n\n```text\nDarwin 24.5.0\n```\n\n### Subsystem\n\nfs\n\n### What steps will reproduce the bug?\n\n```\nworkspace  nvm use 22.16\nUsing Node v22.16.0\n workspace  rm -rf node-repro; mkdir node-repro && cd node-repro && mkdir src linked && touch linked/foo && ln -s ../linked/foo src/bar && node -e \"fs.cpSync('./src', './out', {dereference: true, recursive: true})\" && ls -la out && cd ..\ntotal 0\ndrwxr-xr-x  3 robhogan  staff   96 22 Jul 15:14 .\ndrwxr-xr-x  5 robhogan  staff  160 22 Jul 15:14 ..\n-rw-r--r--  1 robhogan  staff    0 22 Jul 15:14 bar\n workspace  nvm use 22.17.0\nUsing Node v22.17.0\n workspace  rm -rf node-repro; mkdir node-repro && cd node-repro && mkdir src linked && touch linked/foo && ln -s ../linked/foo src/bar && node -e \"fs.cpSync('./src', './out', {dereference: true, recursive: true})\" && ls -la out && cd ..\ntotal 0\ndrwxr-xr-x  3 robhogan  staff   96 22 Jul 15:14 .\ndrwxr-xr-x  5 robhogan  staff  160 22 Jul 15:14 ..\nlrwxr-xr-x  1 robhogan  staff   47 22 Jul 15:14 bar -> /Users/robhogan/workspace/node-repro/linked/foo\n```\n\n### How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?\n\nAppears to reproduce consistently, no known conditions\n\n### What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?\n\nIn all versions up to 22.17, when `{dereference: true}` was passed as an option to `fs.cpSync`, any symlinks in the source directory would be dereferenced and their targets copied to the destination.\n\n\n\n### What do you see instead?\n\nIn 22.17, a symlink is created in destination instead of a copy of the symlink's target, which is the same as `{dereference: false}`.\n\n### Additional information\n\nAppears closely related to https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/58939 and probably has the same blame commit.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/robhogan","@type":"Person","name":"robhogan"},"datePublished":"2025-07-22T14:25:14Z","url":"https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/59168"}