[BUG] Nuclei >= 3.5.0 can't find templates

[l4rm4nd]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues.

Current Behavior

If i run Nuclei >= 3.5.0 it always aborts saying it can't find templates.

If i downgrade to Nuclei 3.4.10 everything works.

╰─(venv) ○ helpers/nuclei/nuclei -u http://scanme.nmap.org                     

                     __     _
   ____  __  _______/ /__  (_)
  / __ \/ / / / ___/ / _ \/ /
 / / / / /_/ / /__/ /  __/ /
/_/ /_/\__,_/\___/_/\___/_/   v3.5.0

                projectdiscovery.io

[INF] nuclei-templates are not installed, installing...
[INF] Successfully installed nuclei-templates at /opt/tools/infra/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates
[ERR] Could not find template '/opt/tools/infra/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates': no templates found in path "/opt/tools/infra/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates"
[INF] Current nuclei version: v3.5.0 (outdated)
[INF] Current nuclei-templates version: v10.3.1 (latest)
[INF] Targets loaded for current scan: 1
[INF] Scan completed in 117.004µs. No results found.
[FTL] Could not run nuclei: no templates provided for scan

I've already checked permissions and everything seems OK. As said, downgrading nuclei is a working fix.

Expected Behavior

Nuclei >= 3.5.0 installs and finds templates.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Download Nuclei
2. Run Nuclei

nuclei -u http://scanme.nmap.org

Relevant log output

Environment

- OS: Kali 6.12.20-1kali1
- Nuclei: 3.5.0 to 3.5.1
- Go: go version go1.24.2 linux/amd64

Anything else?

No response

[l4rm4nd]

Maybe due to this feature:

#6588

Total guess though. Not verified.

[dwisiswant0]

The latest version is v3.5.1.

Could you update to that version and try again? Please let us know if the issue still persists.

[l4rm4nd]

I've tested both versions. 3.5.1 as well as 3.5.0.

Occurs in both versions.

[l4rm4nd]

It's super weird and I do not yet understand what happens.

I have nuclei templates in a different folder. If I specify this path, nuclei fails:

./nuclei -t /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates/ -u http://localhost:3000

The templates dir exists, permissions are fine but nuclei cannot find it.

Funnily, if i just move the folder, it works:

mkdir -p /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG/just-a-test
cp -R /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates/ /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG/just-a-test/.

Any ideas what changed in Nuclei 3.5.0 onwards that may causes this?

[dwisiswant0]

Thanks for the extra details, @l4rm4nd.

My guess is that this issue occurs because you manually downloaded the nuclei-templates and stored them in a non-default location. Could you provide the result of running jq -r . ~/.config/nuclei/.templates-config.json so I can confirm?

[l4rm4nd]

jq -r . ~/.config/nuclei/.templates-config.json

Okay, there are some wild paths declared in this config file. Deprecated paths.

If I remove this config file and re-run Nuclei, it creates new paths:

{
  "nuclei-templates-directory": "/home/myuser/nuclei-templates",
  "custom-s3-templates-directory": "/home/myuser/nuclei-templates/s3",
  "custom-github-templates-directory": "/home/myuser/nuclei-templates/github",
  "custom-gitlab-templates-directory": "/home/myuser/nuclei-templates/gitlab",
  "custom-azure-templates-directory": "/home/myuser/nuclei-templates/azure",
  "nuclei-templates-version": "v10.3.4",
  "nuclei-ignore-hash": "1a666944243307efff85d5bbd943b190",
  "nuclei-latest-version": "v3.6.0",
  "nuclei-templates-latest-version": "v10.3.4",
  "nuclei-latest-ignore-hash": "1a666944243307efff85d5bbd943b190"
}

Still, I cannot run Nuclei by passing my custom path to nuclei templates.

Is this not supported anymore?

[l4rm4nd]

Even if I tell nuclei to install the templates to a custom path:

./nuclei -ud /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG/helpers/nuclei/nuclei-templates

jq -r . ~/.config/nuclei/.templates-config.json

[dwisiswant0]

That’s quite unexpected. Can you try -ud-ing it from a different directory to see if it behaves the same?

$ ./bin/nuclei -ud /tmp/nuclei-templates

                     __     _
   ____  __  _______/ /__  (_)
  / __ \/ / / / ___/ / _ \/ /
 / / / / /_/ / /__/ /  __/ /
/_/ /_/\__,_/\___/_/\___/_/   v3.6.0

		projectdiscovery.io

[INF] nuclei-templates are not installed, installing...
[INF] Successfully installed nuclei-templates at /tmp/nuclei-templates
[INF] Current nuclei version: v3.6.0 (latest)
[INF] Current nuclei-templates version: v10.3.4 (latest)
[INF] New templates added in latest release: 0
[INF] Templates loaded for current scan: 8855
[INF] Executing 8853 signed templates from projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates
[WRN] Loading 2 unsigned templates for scan. Use with caution.
[INF] Scan completed in 56.707195ms. No results found.

[l4rm4nd]

That’s quite unexpected. Can you try -ud-ing it from a different directory to see if it behaves the same?

$ ./bin/nuclei -ud /tmp/nuclei-templates

                 __     _

____ __ / / ()
/ __ / / / / / / _ / /
/ / / / // / // / __/ /
// //_,/_/_/_/_/ v3.6.0

  projectdiscovery.io

[INF] nuclei-templates are not installed, installing...
[INF] Successfully installed nuclei-templates at /tmp/nuclei-templates
[INF] Current nuclei version: v3.6.0 (latest)
[INF] Current nuclei-templates version: v10.3.4 (latest)
[INF] New templates added in latest release: 0
[INF] Templates loaded for current scan: 8855
[INF] Executing 8853 signed templates from projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates
[WRN] Loading 2 unsigned templates for scan. Use with caution.
[INF] Scan completed in 56.707195ms. No results found.

This somehow works:

Something is fucked up with my folder at /opt/tools/infra/FireAbend-NG

[dwisiswant0]

LMFAOO. That's so strange.

So I tried these steps, and it still works for me.

$ ./bin/nuclei -ud /tmp/nuclei-templates
$ mkdir -p /tmp/hello
$ cp -r /tmp/nuclei-templates/ /tmp/hello/
$ ./bin/nuclei -u http://scanme.sh -t /tmp/hello/nuclei-templates/

                     __     _
   ____  __  _______/ /__  (_)
  / __ \/ / / / ___/ / _ \/ /
 / / / / /_/ / /__/ /  __/ /
/_/ /_/\__,_/\___/_/\___/_/   v3.6.0

		projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current nuclei version: v3.6.0 (latest)
[INF] Current nuclei-templates version: v10.3.4 (latest)
[INF] New templates added in latest release: 0
[INF] Templates loaded for current scan: 8861
[WRN] Loading 2 unsigned templates for scan. Use with caution.
[INF] Executing 8859 signed templates from projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates
[INF] Targets loaded for current scan: 1
[INF] Templates clustered: 1853 (Reduced 1740 Requests)
[INF] Using Interactsh Server: oast.online
^C[INF] CTRL+C pressed: Exiting
[INF] Attempting graceful shutdown...
[INF] Creating resume file: 
[ERR] Couldn't create resume file: open : no such file or directory

I have no idea how to reproduce the issue you’re seeing. Any suggestions?

[l4rm4nd]

I'll keep digging. It's that fucking folder solely reproducing this issue.

Any other folder works fine. If I copy the troubleshooting folder somewhere else, it happens again. ROFL.

Permissions look fine. Will dig.

[dwisiswant0]

Alright, sounds good. Please keep us posted!

[l4rm4nd]

So it turns out that my /helper folder holds other directories that were previously initialized by git submodule and then just copied over. The .gitmodules hidden file is still there though:

Due to this, Nuclei refuses to install/update the templates in any subfolder of the helpers directory. I am not sure why, as it's just a folder and works still fine for Nuclei < 3.5.0.

Likely introduced by #5914.

Nonetheless, I can install the templates somewhere else just fine and Nuclei >= 3.5.0 works again. So from my perspective, it can be closed but maybe you want to dig deeper too.

Thanks for helping to troubleshoot. Sorry for the inconvenience!