Failing because the `branch` already exists #245

bnb · 2020-10-29T15:56:16Z

Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding how the branch property in the config is supposed to work, but in using it after the initial run where it was created the Action is failing on every subsequent run with the assertion that git checkout -b <branch> already exists.

Here's an example run:

https://github.com/bnb/node/runs/1327432876

Here's the error:

Remote branch "actions/authors-update" checked out locally.
Branch "actions/authors-update" does not yet exist on remote.
Error: Command failed with exit code 128 (Unknown system error -128): git checkout -b actions/authors-update
    at makeError (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:5673:11)
    at handlePromise (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:7624:26)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:93:5)
    at async runShellCommand (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:707:32)
    at async checkOutRemoteBranch (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:699:5)
    at async main (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:567:32) {
  command: 'git checkout -b actions/authors-update',
  exitCode: 128,
  exitCodeName: 'Unknown system error -128',
  stdout: '',
  stderr: "fatal: A branch named 'actions/authors-update' already exists.",
  all: "fatal: A branch named 'actions/authors-update' already exists.",
  failed: true,
  timedOut: false,
  isCanceled: false,
  killed: false,
  signal: undefined

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

gr2m · 2020-10-29T18:03:38Z

I think this is the same problem as described in #177. I could really use help from a git expert to debug and fix this problem, it's really annoying :( Can you think of someone who might be able to help?

bnb · 2020-10-29T19:17:43Z

perhaps @ethomson could help or knows someone who could? ❤️

gr2m · 2020-10-29T19:39:19Z

pretty pleeeaaseee?

ethomson · 2020-10-29T21:16:53Z

Well, here's what I'm seeing. @bnb's run first checks out the actions/authors-update branch locally. In other words, the local branch actions/authors-update will be created to track origin/actions/authors-update.

But the stack trace says that it failed to create a local actions/authors-update branch:

Error: Command failed with exit code 128 (Unknown system error -128): git checkout -b actions/authors-update
    at makeError (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:5673:11)
    at handlePromise (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:7624:26)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:93:5)
    at async runShellCommand (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:707:32)
    at async checkOutRemoteBranch (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:699:5)
    at async main (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:567:32) {

This checkout -b is done in the exception handler.

So... something threw between the checkout step (which sent output indicating its success) and returning from the function.

That means that the runShellCommand that does the cherry-pick failed.

If it were me, I would:

Not assume that an exception means that the remote branch doesn't exist. Instead I'd look for origin/{branch_name}. As we've seen, there are other failure modes.
Log some error messages about the cherry-pick failure.

I don't have a guess yet for why the cherry-pick would fail, but I do think that it's what's failing here.

gr2m · 2020-10-29T22:09:51Z

Thanks Edward, I'll look into this tomorrow

bnb · 2020-11-11T15:21:11Z

hey @gr2m! 👋🏻

wanted to follow up to see if that was the right path?

gr2m · 2020-11-11T18:26:18Z

sorry I didn't have a chance to look into it yet, but I have it on my todo list. I'll bump it to the top and keep you posted

gr2m · 2020-11-12T23:49:02Z

I tried a few things to intentionally reproduce the problem but had no luck. If anyone could help me produce a test case I'd appreciate it. For now I'll add more error logging as suggested by @ethomson

to help debug #245

gr2m · 2020-11-13T00:01:48Z

Can you add a ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG secret and set it to true as described here: https://github.com/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action#debugging that will log the error from the git cherry-pick command to the build output

gr2m · 2020-11-13T00:09:31Z

I think the solution is to simplify the git commands in the first place. What I want is to update an existing branch update-branch, with unstaged changes in the default branch main. Or if update-branch does not yet exist, create it.

I don't want to commit the changes to main, I want to commit them to update-branch. I experimented with stashing but that didn't work well so I ended up creating a temporary branch and then cherry-picking the changes from there.

What would the git commands be you would use in such a situation?

ethomson · 2020-11-13T12:01:08Z

Ugh, this is one of those places where what you describe is relatively easy in the data modelling side (and I could whip you up some libgit2 to do this quite easily) but I'm not 100% sure what the git commands are to get you there.

I think that using git itself, I'd let it do the work against an alternate index file (in other words, stage all those changes, but not against the repository index, so the repo will still see them as unchanged), and create a commit from it and then set that to the head of update-branch.

I think that this will work:

TMPFILE=$(mktemp)

# add the files to the temporary staging area
GIT_INDEX_FILE="${TMPFILE}" git add .

# turn the temporary staging area into a tree object
TREE_ID=$(GIT_INDEX_FILE="${TMPFILE}" git write-tree)

# create a commit that points to that tree object
COMMIT_ID=$(git commit-tree -p HEAD -m 'commit message goes here' $TREE_ID)

# create or update the branch to the new commit
git branch -f 'branch_name_goes_here' $COMMIT_ID

bnb · 2020-11-13T17:48:52Z

Here's the run, @gr2m: https://github.com/bnb/node/actions/runs/362043074

gr2m · 2020-11-13T19:30:09Z

Thanks @ethomson! Maybe we can make the current version work, but if not, I'll try the commands you suggested. Regarding libgit2, aren't there bindings for Node we could use? Would that help in this case?

Thanks @bnb, here is the full error we are facing

$ git cherry-pick --strategy recursive --strategy-option theirs tmp-create-or-update-pull-request-action-ow2fj5il2e
Error: Command failed with exit code 1 (EPERM): git cherry-pick --strategy recursive --strategy-option theirs tmp-create-or-update-pull-request-action-ow2fj5il2e
    at makeError (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:5673:11)
    at handlePromise (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:7624:26)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:93:5)
    at async runShellCommand (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:707:32)
    at async checkOutRemoteBranch (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:692:5)
    at async main (/home/runner/work/_actions/gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action/v1.x/dist/index.js:567:32) {
  command: 'git cherry-pick --strategy recursive --strategy-option theirs tmp-create-or-update-pull-request-action-ow2fj5il2e',
  exitCode: 1,
  exitCodeName: 'EPERM',
  stdout: 'On branch actions/authors-update\n' +
    'You are currently cherry-picking commit c8d45a65ec.\n' +
    '  (all conflicts fixed: run "git cherry-pick --continue")\n' +
    '  (use "git cherry-pick --skip" to skip this patch)\n' +
    '  (use "git cherry-pick --abort" to cancel the cherry-pick operation)\n' +
    '\n' +
    'nothing to commit, working tree clean',
  stderr: 'The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution.\n' +
    'If you wish to commit it anyway, use:\n' +
    '\n' +
    '    git commit --allow-empty\n' +
    '\n' +
    "Otherwise, please use 'git cherry-pick --skip'",
  all: 'The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution.\n' +
    'If you wish to commit it anyway, use:\n' +
    '\n' +
    '    git commit --allow-empty\n' +
    '\n' +
    "Otherwise, please use 'git cherry-pick --skip'\n" +
    'On branch actions/authors-update\n' +
    'You are currently cherry-picking commit c8d45a65ec.\n' +
    '  (all conflicts fixed: run "git cherry-pick --continue")\n' +
    '  (use "git cherry-pick --skip" to skip this patch)\n' +
    '  (use "git cherry-pick --abort" to cancel the cherry-pick operation)\n' +
    '\n' +
    'nothing to commit, working tree clean',
  failed: true,
  timedOut: false,
  isCanceled: false,
  killed: false,
  signal: undefined
}

It sounds like the problem is

nothing to commit, working tree clean

Sounds like this could be fixed by adding --allow-empty to the command? 🙏🏼 Let me try that

so the action was triggered, no change occurred, and that's why the cherry pick failed somehow? I wish I could reproduce the state with pure git commands for easier debugging, I didn't manage to yet.

that resolves "The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution" error. Ref #245

gr2m · 2020-11-13T19:46:48Z

Sounds like this could be fixed by adding --allow-empty to the command?

That did not seem to have worked 🤷🏼
https://github.com/octokit/graphql-schema/runs/1397579382?check_suite_focus=true#step:7:326

But running git cherry-pick --skip in case of a "The previous cherry-pick is now empty" error did, at least in this case. Let me ship that and then see if that resolves the problem for you, too, @bnb?

github-actions · 2020-11-13T19:57:53Z

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 1.3.1 🎉

The release is available on GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀

bnb · 2020-11-16T15:16:38Z

@gr2m it worked 👍🏻

https://github.com/bnb/node/actions/runs/366247539

gr2m · 2020-11-16T16:38:18Z

yay! Thank you all for your help!

bnb mentioned this issue Oct 29, 2020

build: add authors.yml nodejs/node#35831

Merged

1 task

gr2m added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 12, 2020

ci: debug workflow for #245

0fd548e

github-actions bot mentioned this issue Nov 12, 2020

Debug #250

Closed

gr2m added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 12, 2020

fix: log error in case of cherry-pick error

453e753

to help debug #245

gr2m mentioned this issue Nov 12, 2020

fix: log error in case of cherry-pick error #255

Closed

gr2m added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 13, 2020

fix: add --allow-empty to git cherry-pick command

16020a8

that resolves "The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution" error. Ref #245

gr2m mentioned this issue Nov 13, 2020

fix: handle "The previous cherry-pick is now empty" #256

Merged

gr2m closed this as completed in #256 Nov 13, 2020

github-actions bot added the released label Nov 13, 2020

bezi mentioned this issue Dec 28, 2020

Failing on private repositories because branch already exists. #277

Closed

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Failing because the `branch` already exists #245

Failing because the `branch` already exists #245

bnb commented Oct 29, 2020

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gr2m commented Nov 16, 2020

Failing because the branch already exists #245

Failing because the branch already exists #245

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Failing because the `branch` already exists #245

Failing because the `branch` already exists #245