Checkout action randomly fails on self-hosted runner

[return-tosleep]

Checkout action randomly fails on self-hosted runner with the following error message: ##[error]No such file or directory

My workflow:

on: push
name: ci
jobs:
  ci:
    name: Run CI
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

Error message on action run

Information about self-hosted runner:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Release:	20.04
Codename:	focal

$ git --version
git version 2.28.0

This issue occurs randomly. Sometimes re-running the action fixes this.

Any steps to debug the issue and find the root cause? The error message is not very helpful, any way to verbosify it?

[berndvdveen]

@return-tosleep See this other issue #334 (comment)

[ericsciple]

@return-tosleep can you turn on step debug logging.

If that doesn't provide enough details, may need to enable runner diagnostic logs

[return-tosleep]

@ericsciple thanks for the debugging tip. I am enabling debugging, will get back to you here when I can get the logs on a failed job.

[return-tosleep]

@ericsciple here are the logs from a failed job:

##[debug]Starting: Run actions/checkout@v2
##[debug]Register post job cleanup for action: actions/checkout@v2
##[debug]Loading inputs
##[debug]Evaluating: github.repository
##[debug]Evaluating Index:
##[debug]..Evaluating github:
##[debug]..=> Object
##[debug]..Evaluating String:
##[debug]..=> 'repository'
##[debug]=> 'return-tosleep/test'
##[debug]Result: 'return-tosleep/test'
##[debug]Evaluating: github.token
##[debug]Evaluating Index:
##[debug]..Evaluating github:
##[debug]..=> Object
##[debug]..Evaluating String:
##[debug]..=> 'token'
##[debug]=> '***'
##[debug]Result: '***'
##[debug]Loading env
##[group]Run actions/checkout@v2
with:
  repository: return-tosleep/test
  token: ***
  ssh-strict: true
  persist-credentials: true
  clean: true
  fetch-depth: 1
  lfs: false
  submodules: false
##[endgroup]
##[error]No such file or directory
##[debug]System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (2): No such file or directory
##[debug]   at System.Diagnostics.Process.ForkAndExecProcess(String filename, String[] argv, String[] envp, String cwd, Boolean redirectStdin, Boolean redirectStdout, Boolean redirectStderr, Boolean setCredentials, UInt32 userId, UInt32 groupId, UInt32[] groups, Int32& stdinFd, Int32& stdoutFd, Int32& stderrFd, Boolean usesTerminal, Boolean throwOnNoExec)
##[debug]   at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartCore(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
##[debug]   at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Sdk.ProcessInvoker.ExecuteAsync(String workingDirectory, String fileName, String arguments, IDictionary`2 environment, Boolean requireExitCodeZero, Encoding outputEncoding, Boolean killProcessOnCancel, Channel`1 redirectStandardIn, Boolean inheritConsoleHandler, Boolean keepStandardInOpen, Boolean highPriorityProcess, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Common.ProcessInvokerWrapper.ExecuteAsync(String workingDirectory, String fileName, String arguments, IDictionary`2 environment, Boolean requireExitCodeZero, Encoding outputEncoding, Boolean killProcessOnCancel, Channel`1 redirectStandardIn, Boolean inheritConsoleHandler, Boolean keepStandardInOpen, Boolean highPriorityProcess, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Worker.Handlers.DefaultStepHost.ExecuteAsync(String workingDirectory, String fileName, String arguments, IDictionary`2 environment, Boolean requireExitCodeZero, Encoding outputEncoding, Boolean killProcessOnCancel, Boolean inheritConsoleHandler, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Worker.Handlers.NodeScriptActionHandler.RunAsync(ActionRunStage stage)
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Worker.ActionRunner.RunAsync()
##[debug]   at GitHub.Runner.Worker.StepsRunner.RunStepAsync(IStep step, CancellationToken jobCancellationToken)
##[debug]Finishing: Run actions/checkout@v2

[return-tosleep]

@ericsciple any updates?

[ericsciple]

I think something on your machine/workflow may be deleteing node.exe from the runner. When the error happens can you check whether <RUNNER_DIR>\externals\node12\bin\node.exe exists?

[ericsciple]

That error is from the runner. The only process that NodeScriptActionHandler execs is node.exe.