Stefano Ghirlanda <dr.ghirlanda@gmail.com> writes:

> I have run into an inconvenience in that colons in :var header
> arguments to source blocks are invariably interpreted as referring to
> another file. However, I use cleveref in LaTeX export (via org-ref) to
> automatically format references using labels like tab:data, and in
> these cases :var data=tab:data gives a reference not found because tab
> is interpreted as a filename.

I agree that it is a problem.
Attaching tentative patch that will make Org babel fall back to
searching in current file when FILE in FILE:REF does not exist.

It is technically a breaking change. If this is affecting someone's
workflow, please chime in.