Minecraft used to use the $HOME variable to determine the location of the `.minecraft` folder. The latest version, however, doesn't do that anymore. Even when $HOME points to another directory, the launcher seems to find the "real" home and search for the .minecraft folder there.
Comments 3
Thanks for reporting this! This has now rolled out to beta users of the launcher. You might have to uninstall minecraft-launcher and install it again from minecraft.net/download to take full effect.
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but this is what I get when I run the latest minecraft launcher on Ubuntu 20.04.
merlijn@howard:~/Downloads/Minecraft(1)/minecraft-launcher$ ./minecraft-launcher[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.309006261: NetQueue.cpp(157)] NetQueue: Setting up.[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.309302930: mainLinux.cpp(250)] Running launcher bootstrap (version 915)[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.309183842: NetQueue.cpp(575)] NetQueue: worker thread started.[Debug: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.309589445: PlatformLinux.cpp(44)] HOME dir (getpwuid): /home/merlijn[Debug: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.309601690: PlatformLinux.cpp(49)] HOME dir (env): /home/merlijn[Error: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.310450485: Settings.cpp(40)] Failed to determine configuration file size: No such file or directory[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.310962141: Common.cpp(32)] Native Launcher Version: 915[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.310981386: Common.cpp(33)] Operating System: Linux[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.310994280: Common.cpp(34)] Application Data directory: //.../.minecraft[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311009290: Common.cpp(35)] Executable Path: /.../minecraft-launcher[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311020203: Common.cpp(36)] App Directory dir: //.../minecraft-launcher[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311030579: Common.cpp(37)] Game data directory: //.../.minecraft[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311040630: Common.cpp(38)] Launcher dir: //.../launcher[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311053767: Common.cpp(39)] Java dir: //.../jre-x64[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311064226: Common.cpp(40)] TmpDir dir: //.../MinecraftLauncher.1000[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311074251: Common.cpp(41)] x64: true[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311549053: mainLinux.cpp(308)] relaunchedExe: /home/merlijn/.minecraft/launcher/minecraft-launcher selfExe: /home/merlijn/Downloads/Minecraft(1)/minecraft-launcher/minecraft-launcher[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311606914: mainLinux.cpp(312)] Top level executable, forwarding signals.[Error: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.311648880: mainLinux.cpp(330)] Invalid start directory!MessageBox(Minecraft Launcher): Cannot start Minecraft in "/home/merlijn/.minecraft": the specified path is not a valid directory.[Info: 2021-03-11 16:51:02.312662503: NetQueue.cpp(585)] NetQueue: Starting net action [https://sentry.io/api/5254002/store/]
This is even with a regular home directory so it looks like something regressed further.
Fixed in master branch. Will be released soon.