ERROR! failed to combine variables, expected dicts but got a 'NoneType' and a 'AnsibleMapping'

[xpillons]

Trying to move from 1.8.1 to 2.0.2 I was unable to successfully run my playbook including the ood-ansible role.

The full error being

ERROR! failed to combine variables, expected dicts but got a 'NoneType' and a 'AnsibleMapping': 
null
{"install_from_src": false, "ood_source_repo": "https://github.com/OSC/ondemand.git", "ood_source_version": "v2.0.9", "ood_build_dir": "/tmp/ood-build", "ood_source_dir": "{{ ood_build_dir }}/ondemand", "ood_base_apache_dir": "/var/www/ood", "ood_base_dir": "/opt/ood", "ood_core_libs": ["mod_ood_proxy", "nginx_stage", "ood-portal-generator", "ood_auth_map"], "ood_base_apps": ["activejobs", "bc_desktop", "dashboard", "file-editor", "files", "myjobs", "shell"], "ruby_lib_dir": "/usr/lib64/ruby/", "passenger_version": "6.0.7", "nginx_version": "1.18.0", "nodejs_version": "12.x", "passenger_tar": "passenger-{{ passenger_version }}.tar.gz", "nginx_tar": "nginx-{{ nginx_version }}-x86_64-linux.tar.gz", "agent_tar": "agent-x86_64-linux.tar.gz", "passenger_base_url": "https://github.com/phusion/passenger/releases/download", "passenger_release_url": "{{ passenger_base_url }}/release-{{ passenger_version }}", "passenger_url": "{{ passenger_release_url }}/{{ passenger_tar }}", "passenger_nginx_url": "{{ passenger_release_url }}/{{ nginx_tar }}", "passenger_agent_url": "{{ passenger_release_url }}/{{ agent_tar }}", "passenger_remote_dl": true, "passenger_src_dir": "{{ ood_build_dir }}/passenger-src", "passenger_lib_dir": "{{ ood_base_dir }}/passenger-lib", "passenger_support_binaries_dir": "{{ passenger_lib_dir }}/support-binaries", "passenger_base_dir": "{{ ood_base_dir }}/passenger", "g_plus_plus": "g++", "sqlite_devel_package": "sqlite-devel", "ruby_devel_package": "ruby-devel", "ffi_devel_package": "libffi-devel", "libz_devel_package": "zlib-devel"}

this is using ansible 2.9.6 on ubuntu 20.4

[xpillons]

this was finally fixed by renaming apps.yml and ondemand.yml in the defaults/main directory as they are empty, which was generating this combine error

[johrstrom]

Hey sorry for the error. What did you rename them to? That refactor wasn't supposed to break anything.

[xpillons]

another workaround is to just uncomment one of the root object in these 2 files, like cluster in apps.yml and pinned_apps in ondemand.yml

[xpillons]

Hey sorry for the error. What did you rename them to? That refactor wasn't supposed to break anything.

I renamed to .yml_

[johrstrom]

Thanks, do you happen to have hash_behaviour = merge in your ansible.cfg file?

[xpillons]

no I don't. Should I ?

[johrstrom]

Apparently not, I guess they warn against it because it could cause issues like this. I just googled it to see.

ansible/ansible#43259

I think your solution could work, I'm just trying to replicate and see what else there could be.

[johrstrom]

OK -with 2.9.6 and even 2.9.25 I can replicate. I think I was running some version of 2.10.X initially. The CI doesn't fail, but I think that just pulles the latest from pip.

I'll submit a patch that fixes this. Thanks for the ticket!

[xpillons]

Great. Once patched I will update our integration in az-hop https://github.com/Azure/az-hop

[xpillons]

Hey sorry for the error. What did you rename them to? That refactor wasn't supposed to break anything.

This is the commit which break it ff47d41#diff-b1c30208e6f787fbea32fc69cf64d04054d0aac81275dc8da5b217a954072ccd splitting in many files the main one, ending into empty files (from an ansible variable view)

[johrstrom]

Yep. I just published v2.0.3. Let me know if there's anything else wrong with your upgrade.

[xpillons]

Yep. I just published v2.0.3. Let me know if there's anything else wrong with your upgrade.

first deployments looks good