Re: v2.52.0-rc0 test failure on cygwin

From: Ramsay Jones <ramsay@ramsayjones.plus.com>
Date: Nov 6, 2025, 20:28 UTC
Message-ID: <a8a03a31-8e06-4b72-b847-b59548156e60@ramsayjones.plus.com>
In-Reply-To: <aQx-RnNX28BPU2cS@pks.im>

On 06/11/2025 10:53 am, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:

Show 41 quoted lines

> On Tue, Nov 04, 2025 at 11:49:46PM +0000, Ramsay Jones wrote:
>> Just a quick heads up: the rc0 build on cygwin has a flaky test, thus:
>>   
>>   $ tail test-out-2-52-rc0 
>>   Test Summary Report
>>   -------------------
>>   t0610-reftable-basics.sh                         (Wstat: 256 (exited 1) Tests: 90 Failed: 1)
>>     Failed test:  29
>>     Non-zero exit status: 1
>>   Files=1024, Tests=32232, 2703 wallclock secs (23.38 usr 60.53 sys + 7886.88 cusr 10419.88 csys = 18390.67 CPU)
>>   Result: FAIL
>>   make[1]: *** [Makefile:78: prove] Error 1
>>   make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ramsay/git/t'
>>   make: *** [Makefile:3327: test] Error 2
>>   $ 
>>  
>> Initially, while investigating the failure, I was running the test by hand and it
>> didn't fail ... So, I tried a stess test, like so: 
> 
> Interesting. My first hunch is that the root cause is auto-maintenance.
> git-maintenance(1) spawns `git pack-refs --auto`, and that process will
> open the stack so that it can verify whether it needs to be packed or
> not. And Windows being Windows, the file being open may mean that it
> cannot be written by another process at the same point in time.
> 
> In any case, I was able to reproduce the issue. But disabling auto
> maintenance with the following patch does not fix the flake.
> 
> diff --git a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> index 3ea5d51532..52bbf4fe57 100755
> --- a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> +++ b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> @@ -204,6 +204,7 @@ test_expect_success 'ref transaction: corrupted tables cause failure' '
>  	git init repo &&
>  	(
>  		cd repo &&
> +		git config set maintenance.auto false &&
>  		test_commit file1 &&
>  		for f in .git/reftable/*.ref
>  		do
>

Thanks for looking into this - yesterday was unexpectedly busy, so I didn't have time to look at this myself. :(

I also thought, briefly, about 'git maintenance' since the error seems to happen in parallel heavy workloads. You probably didn't notice that the test finished in 45min, because I ran the test with '-j8'. I have recently replaced my win10 laptop. On my old laptop, the non-parallel test run used to take 6+ hours. With my new laptop it is 4+ hours, so it is still a long time to wait. However, the 'meson test', which by default runs the tests in parallel, was much faster (about 80-90min). So, it was worth a try... At the moment the parallel tests hang about half of the time (prove hangs right at the very end!), so I am still experimenting.

[snip]

Show 20 quoted lines

> I wonder whether the issue is surfaced because we use the shell to
> truncate the file. If you instead use `file-tool truncate 0` for example
> then I cannot reproduce the flake anymore:
> 
> diff --git a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> index 3ea5d51532..1058f83993 100755
> --- a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> +++ b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
> @@ -207,7 +207,7 @@ test_expect_success 'ref transaction: corrupted tables cause failure' '
>  		test_commit file1 &&
>  		for f in .git/reftable/*.ref
>  		do
> -			: >"$f" || return 1
> +			test-tool truncate "$f" 0 || return 1
>  		done &&
>  		test_must_fail git update-ref refs/heads/main HEAD
>  	)
> 
> But this may very well just be due to timing again -- spawning the
> process will be slower than using shell redirection to trim the file.

I tried this patch tonight, letting:

    $ ./t0610-reftable-basics.sh --run=29 --stress-limit=10

finish, which it did without failure. So that's 32 * 10 successful runs.

(I had expected 16 * 10 yesterday, ie 2 * cores * 10, but this laptop has 8 cores 16 threads, so 'getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN' returns 16 not 8).

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> 
> All of this is quite curious. I don't really have any better idea than
> to use something like the above patch. It's ugly, doubly so because I
> don't understand either the root cause nor why the patch properly fixes
> it. So I'd be grateful if anyone were to enlighten me :)

Me too! :)

> I have verified that the flake already exists in Git 2.51, so at least
> it's not a regression in the current release cycle.

OK, that's good to know.

Despite the mystery, I think a patch based on the above would be the best solution for now. (Assuming nobody has a better idea).

Thanks.

ATB, Ramsay Jones