fatal error in bash script in R while the path is correct

Question

I'm trying to sbatch a bash script (vsearch apptainer), but the log file shows that there is a problem in the path, while the path is correct:

sample_table_file=metadata.txt
data_folder=/mnt/users/KB/metadata/data_ready
vsearch_exe="apptainer exec $HOME/vsearch:2.27.0--h6a68c12_0.sif vsearch"
tmp_folder=$SCRATCH/vsearch
max_error_probability=0.01
threads=10
if [ ! -d $tmp_folder ]
then
  mkdir $tmp_folder
fi

the error in log file:

Fatal error: Unable to open file for reading (/mnt/users/KB/metadata/data_ready/SequencingRunID)