Thanks for the bug report, Mikko. I confirmed that this bug happens on both Bionic and Focal, but doesn't happen (or at least doesn't happen in the same way) on Groovy.
Bear in mind that, when running this command using Groovy's rsync, I see: $ rsync --delete-missing-args --files-from=list a b file has vanished: "/tmp/rsync-bug/a/1/2" WARNING: parent dir is absent in the file list: 1/2 default_perms_for_dir: sys_acl_get_file(1/2, ACL_TYPE_DEFAULT): No such file or directory, falling back on umask rsync warning: some files vanished before they could be transferred (code 24) at main.c(1330) [sender=3.2.3] This is a different error from the one reported in the bug, and I think it's worth investigating whether it is another bug, or if it's just an expected error this time. FWIW, the patch needed to be backport in order to fix the initial bug on Bionic/Focal rsync is: commit af6118d98b3482cbcfc223bf2a0777bc19eccb02 Author: Wayne Davison <wa...@opencoder.net> AuthorDate: Sun Apr 26 18:02:17 2020 -0700 Commit: Wayne Davison <wa...@opencoder.net> CommitDate: Sun Apr 26 18:10:40 2020 -0700 Allow a missing parent dir when --delete-missing-args was specified. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to rsync in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1896251 Title: rsync --delete-missing-args fails with "error: protocol incompatibility" Status in rsync package in Ubuntu: New Status in rsync source package in Xenial: Triaged Status in rsync source package in Bionic: Triaged Status in rsync source package in Focal: Triaged Bug description: Running rsync --delete-missing-args --files-from=... fails with error message like ABORTING due to invalid path from sender: dir1/dir2/dir3 rsync error: protocol incompatibility (code 2) at generator.c(1271) [generator=3.1.2] if the listed directories are trying to delete full subtree of files. According to https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12569 this has been fixed in version 3.2.2. See also: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=863334 Could you update the rsync package or backport the fix? ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04 Package: rsync 3.1.2-2.1ubuntu1.1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-47.51~18.04.1-lowlatency 5.4.55 Uname: Linux 5.4.0-47-lowlatency x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.17 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: MATE Date: Fri Sep 18 18:27:53 2020 EcryptfsInUse: Yes InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-01-05 (621 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725) SourcePackage: rsync UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rsync/+bug/1896251/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp