Describe the bug

On master, builtins.pathExists returns false for an existing symlink that points to a non-existent path.

This is a regression, as Nix 2.18.1 returns true.

Steps To Reproduce

$ ln -s does-not-exist symlink
$ nix-instantiate --eval -E 'builtins.pathExists ./symlink'
false

Expected behavior

The same as Nix 2.18.1, which is true

nix-env --version output

nix-env (Nix) 2.21.0pre20240201_ef6d055

Additional context

This was found from the lib.fileset test suite in Nixpkgs failing in a PR (NixOS/nixpkgs#285264), after which @roberth opened #9900.

This may relate to previous regressions:

• Regression in builtins.pathExists #8838
• Regression in symlink handling in 2.16 #9298

This issue is sponsored by Antithesis ✨

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