Post-action fails when running multiple builds in the same step with configuration-cache enabled

[CharlieTap]

I'm attempting to configure this action in conjunction with using the gradle profiler

I'm running the workflow on the standard github ubuntu-latest runner

My config is the following:

  benchmark:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:

      - name: Clone Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Set up JDK 11
        uses: actions/setup-java@v2
        with:
          distribution: 'zulu'
          java-version: '11'

      - name: Setup Gradle
        uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@v2
        with:
          cache-read-only: false

      - name: Install and run the gradle profiler
        run: |
          curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
          source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"
          sdk install gradleprofiler 0.18.0
          gradle-profiler --benchmark --scenario-file gradle/benchmark.scenarios assembleDebug --gradle-user-home ~/.gradle

But I'm getting the following failure in the Post Setup Gradle step:

Post job cleanup. In final post-action step, saving state and writing summary Warning: Unhandled error in Gradle post-action - job will continue: SyntaxError: Unexpected token { in JSON at position 310 SyntaxError: Unexpected token { in JSON at position 310 at JSON.parse (<anonymous>) at /home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v[2](https://github.com/CharlieTap/motdujour/actions/runs/3119036265/jobs/5058738131#step:12:2)/dist/post/index.js:64660:21 at Array.map (<anonymous>) at loadBuildResults (/home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v2/dist/post/index.js:64657:44) at Object.<anonymous> (/home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v2/dist/post/index.js:66201:67) at Generator.next (<anonymous>) at /home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v2/dist/post/index.js:6615[3](https://github.com/CharlieTap/motdujour/actions/runs/3119036265/jobs/5058738131#step:12:3):71 at new Promise (<anonymous>) at __webpack_modules__.8652.__awaiter (/home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v2/dist/post/index.js:661[4](https://github.com/CharlieTap/motdujour/actions/runs/3119036265/jobs/5058738131#step:12:4)9:12) at Object.complete (/home/runner/work/_actions/gradle/gradle-build-action/v2/dist/post/index.js:6619[5](https://github.com/CharlieTap/motdujour/actions/runs/3119036265/jobs/5058738131#step:12:5):[12](https://github.com/CharlieTap/motdujour/actions/runs/3119036265/jobs/5058738131#step:12:12))

[bigdaz]

Thanks for the report. The error is happening when attempting to read the build result files, that capture various details about each Gradle invocation. These will be located in $RUNNER_TEMP/.build-results.

• Is this a repeatable failure?
• If so, can you please capture the $RUNNER_TEMP/.build-results directory in a final step in your workflow?

You can use the core upload-artifact action to save this directory. Something like:

      - name: Collect build results JSON
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: build-results
          path: ${env.RUNNER_TEMP}/.build-results

That should help work out why the action is failing to parse these files in the post-action step.

[CharlieTap]

Thanks for coming back so quickly, yes this is a repeated failure.

I've attached the build results folder at the bottom, its worth noting that the RUNNER_TEMP variable doesn't seem to exist. I actually found the address of the folder by connecting via ssh to the machine the grepping the filesystem. Turns out its the following on my ubuntu runner:

~/work/_temp/.build-results

build-results.zip

[bigdaz]

Thanks for that. I can see that the build results data is duplicated in some of the JSON files eg:

{"rootProjectName":"motdujour","rootProjectDir":"/home/runner/work/motdujour/motdujour","requestedTasks":"assembleSrcFRDebug","gradleVersion":"7.5.1","gradleHomeDir":"/home/runner/.gradle/wrapper/dists/gradle-7.5.1-bin/7jzzequgds1hbszbhq3npc5ng/gradle-7.5.1","buildFailed":false,"buildScanUri":null,"buildScanFailed":false}
{"rootProjectName":"motdujour","rootProjectDir":"/home/runner/work/motdujour/motdujour","requestedTasks":"assembleSrcFRDebug","gradleVersion":"7.5.1","gradleHomeDir":"/home/runner/.gradle/wrapper/dists/gradle-7.5.1-bin/7jzzequgds1hbszbhq3npc5ng/gradle-7.5.1","buildFailed":false,"buildScanUri":null,"buildScanFailed":false}

Looking at the code I can see how this could happen if 2 builds share the same "invocation ID", and I'll add a guard to prevent this from happening.

However, I'm surprised that you have 2 builds starting at the exact same System.currentTimeMillis (which is part of the invocation ID. Do you happen to be running with the configuration-cache enabled?

[bigdaz]

OK so I've managed to reproduce this failure. It occurs when:

• 2 identical builds are run within the same GitHub Actions step
• Configuration-cache is enabled for the build

The problem is that we use the Step ID + build timestamp to uniquely identify a build. But the configuration-cache results in the same timestamp being used for the 2 subsequent builds in the same step. We then write both build results to the same file, resulting in invalid JSON when we subsequently load those results.

A temporary workaround is to enable build scan publishing for these builds. That works because this results in the existing results file being overwritten instead of appended.

[CharlieTap]

That would make sense as I'm using the gradle profiler to benchmark, so I'm running the build n many times in order to get an average. I'll have a look into whether I can enable scans in the profiler, though normally I wouldn't do this as actually doing 5 warm up builds and 15 measured builds which is quite a few build scans 😅

[bigdaz]

I've just released v2.3.2 which prevent the error in the post-action step.
@CharlieTap can you please see if this problem is fixed for you?

[CharlieTap]

@bigdaz not only does it work, but it took my benchmarking workflow from 15 minutes down to 5 minutes. So big thank you for this 😄