Error "nix is unable to build packages" when there's nothing to build

[mausch]

Go to https://app.kasmweb.com/#/cast/1481835260 , it's a demo for a web-based Ubuntu desktop environment.

Open a terminal and run:

wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/DavHau/nix-portable/releases/download/v010/nix-portable
chmod a+x nix-portable
./nix-portable nix run nixpkgs#jq

There should be nothing to build here but it crashes with "nix is unable to build packages"

I ran it with NP_DEBUG=2, here's the log: errorlog.txt

[txomon]

I got that error when I had a nix.conf in my home directory pointing the store to a folder in my home directory that already existed.