Invalid cache folder for macOS

[eplatek-safyr]

[macOS latest version, package manager is yarn]

I was playing around the cache on my machine, and after removing manually the cache folders in ~/.cache and ~/Library/Caches, cypress could not start anymore on the CI action.

Locally, when I run npx cypress verify, cypress is correctly installed in ~/Library/Caches/Cypress/12.5.1, but the CI script tries to locate the executable under ~/.cache/Cypress/12.5.1

I can mitigate the issue by adding a symbolic link to the library folder:

ln -s ~/Library/Caches/Cypress ~/.cache/Cypress

Can you confirm that the issue comes from the github action script ? Or am I missing some option related the install folder to use ?

[eplatek-safyr]

I think I've found the issue, I added a PR here

So maybe the issue is not related to this repo, the cypress install script should ensure that the .cache folder exists when installing on macOS

[MikeMcC399]

@eplatek-safyr

If you look at the .github/workflows/example-basic.yml and the logs from running this e.g. https://github.com/cypress-io/github-action/actions/runs/4167116736/jobs/7212307325 you will see that the GitHub action works on macOS.

Could you provide some steps to reproduce and a log file in order to understand the problem that you are running into?

[eplatek-safyr]

Sure, here is a repro on a CI machine :

1. setup a machine with macOS as a github agent
2. run the script with success the first time
3. delete the ~/.cache/Cypress folder
4. The next run in your CI will fail as it is unable to locate any cypress folder under ~/.cache

here is a sample of the log:

Run cypress-io/github-action@v5
Skipping install because install parameter is false
start server command "yarn workspace app-front serve"
current working directory "/Users/user1/actions-runner/_work/xxx/xxx"
waiting on "http://localhost:2222" with timeout of 60 seconds
/Users/user1/.yarn/bin/yarn workspace app-front serve
yarn workspace v1.22.19
yarn run v1.22.19
$ vite preview --port=2222 --strictPort
  ➜  Local:   http://localhost:2222/
  ➜  Network: [http://192.168.1.159:](http://192.168.1.159/)2222/
Error: The cypress npm package is installed, but the Cypress binary is missing.

We expected the binary to be installed here: /Users/user1/.cache/Cypress/12.5.1/Cypress.app/Contents/MacOS/Cypress

Reasons it may be missing:

- You're caching 'node_modules' but are not caching this path: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/Cypress
- You ran 'npm install' at an earlier build step but did not persist: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/Cypress

Properly caching the binary will fix this error and avoid downloading and unzipping Cypress.

Error: The cypress npm package is installed, but the Cypress binary is missing.

We expected the binary to be installed here: /Users/user1/.cache/Cypress/12.5.1/Cypress.app/Contents/MacOS/Cypress

Reasons it may be missing:

- You're caching 'node_modules' but are not caching this path: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/Cypress
- You ran 'npm install' at an earlier build step but did not persist: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/Cypress

Properly caching the binary will fix this error and avoid downloading and unzipping Cypress.

Alternatively, you can run 'cypress install' to download the binary again.

https://on.cypress.io/not-installed-ci-error

----------

Platform: darwin-arm64 (22.2.0)
Cypress Version: 12.5.1
Alternatively, you can run 'cypress install' to download the binary again.

https://on.cypress.io/not-installed-ci-error

----------

Platform: darwin-arm64 (22.2.0)
Cypress Version: 12.5.1
    at /Users/user1/actions-runner/_work/xxx/xxx/node_modules/cypress/lib/errors.js:328:17 ***
  known: true
***

npx cypress verify will confirm you that cypress cache is located at ~/Library/Caches/Cypress and is valid, you even can run your tests manually with npx cypress run since the cypress executable will be found correctly when using the reference defined in the node_modules.

With that said, maybe the issue doesn't come from the github action script, because the documentation of cypress states that the cache location is supposed to be found in the ~/.cache folder. I'm not a macOS user, but it seems that many applications (including cypress) use the ~/Library/Caches folder, so the maybe the issue comes from here.

Another fix could be maybe to look in the test-project/node_modules/.bin folder to use the cypress executable found here, but I don't have more info on the internals

[MikeMcC399]

@eplatek-safyr

• Many thanks for providing more explanation! There is a related PR open under fix: 🐛 action not working in windows or with pnpm  #572 which didn't get processed further, so far.

[MikeMcC399]

@eplatek-safyr

In your logs it shows:

Skipping install because install parameter is false

Would you post your .yml workflow so it is clearer what is being called and with what parameters?

[MikeMcC399]

@eplatek-safyr

The following workflow runs without issues. I replaced the code in https://github.com/cypress-io/github-action/blob/master/.github/workflows/example-basic.yml to test it out.

I'm guessing that you ran cypress-io/github-action with the parameter install: false.

cypress-io/github-action is using a custom directory for the location of the cache (as you already know, since your PR is based on changing this).

I'm assuming that install: false implicitly assumes that there was a previous run of cypress-io/github-action which set up the install, so that the cache locations match, even though they are non-standard compared to the documentation Binary cache.

So I think that your expectations are more in line with an enhancement request than a bug report. We'll have to wait for the Cypress.io team to cross-check about this though.

name: example-basic
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - 'master'
  pull_request:
  workflow_dispatch:

env:
  DEBUG: '@cypress/github-action, cypress:*'

jobs:
  basic-split-macos-12:
    runs-on: macos-12
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Cypress install
        uses: ./
        with:
          runTests: false
          working-directory: examples/basic

      - name: Cypress run
        uses: ./
        with:
          install: false
          working-directory: examples/basic

There is an outdated example in https://github.com/bahmutov/cypress-gh-action-split-install/blob/master/.github/workflows/tests.yml about handling the Cypress cache by hand without using cypress/github-action. That might be suitable for you if you want full control and are willing to work at a deeper level directly with actions/cache.

[MikeMcC399]

Closing due to inactivity.

• Relates also to fix: cypress cache folder selection on macos #794