- Job does not retrieve certain artifacts
- Job artifacts use too much disk space
- Error message
No files to upload
- Error message
Missing /usr/bin/gitlab-runner-helper. Uploading artifacts is disabled.
- Error message
FATAL: invalid argument
when uploading a dotenv artifact on a Windows runner - Job artifacts do not expire
-
Error message
This job could not start because it could not retrieve the needed artifacts.
Troubleshooting job artifacts
When working with job artifacts, you might encounter the following issues.
Job does not retrieve certain artifacts
By default, jobs fetch all artifacts from previous stages, but jobs using dependencies
or needs
do not fetch artifacts from all jobs by default.
If you use these keywords, artifacts are fetched from only a subset of jobs. Review the keyword reference for information on how to fetch artifacts with these keywords:
Job artifacts use too much disk space
If job artifacts are using too much disk space, see the job artifacts administration documentation.
Error message No files to upload
This message appears in job logs when a the runner can’t find the file to upload. Either the path to the file is incorrect, or the file was not created. You can check the job log for other errors or warnings that specify the filename and why it wasn’t generated.
For more detailed job logs, you can enable CI/CD debug logging and try the job again. This logging might provide more information about why the file wasn’t created.
Error message Missing /usr/bin/gitlab-runner-helper. Uploading artifacts is disabled.
Introduced in GitLab 15.2, GitLab Runner uses RUNNER_DEBUG
instead of DEBUG
, fixing this issue.
In GitLab 15.1 and earlier, setting a CI/CD variable named DEBUG
can cause artifact uploads to fail.
To work around this, you can:
- Update to GitLab and GitLab Runner 15.2
- Use a different variable name
-
Set it as an environment variable in a
script
command:failing_test_job: # This job might fail due to issue gitlab-org/gitlab-runner#3068 variables: DEBUG: true script: bin/mycommand artifacts: paths: - bin/results successful_test_job: # This job does not define a CI/CD variable named `DEBUG` and is not affected by the issue script: DEBUG=true bin/mycommand artifacts: paths: - bin/results
Error message FATAL: invalid argument
when uploading a dotenv artifact on a Windows runner
The PowerShell echo
command writes files with UCS-2 LE BOM (Byte Order Mark) encoding,
but only UTF-8 is supported. If you try to create a dotenv
artifact with echo
, it causes a FATAL: invalid argument
error.
Use PowerShell Add-Content
instead, which uses UTF-8:
test-job:
stage: test
tags:
- windows
script:
- echo "test job"
- Add-Content -Path build.env -Value "MY_ENV_VAR=true"
artifacts:
reports:
dotenv: build.env
Job artifacts do not expire
If some job artifacts are not expiring as expected, check if the Keep artifacts from most recent successful jobs setting is enabled.
When this setting is enabled, job artifacts from the latest successful pipeline of each ref do not expire and are not deleted.
Error message This job could not start because it could not retrieve the needed artifacts.
A job fails to start and returns this error message if it can’t fetch the artifacts it expects. This error is returned when:
- The job’s dependencies are not found. By default, jobs in later stages fetch artifacts
from jobs in all earlier stages, so the earlier jobs are all considered dependent.
If the job uses the
dependencies
keyword, only the listed jobs are dependent. - The artifacts are already expired. You can set a longer expiry with
artifacts:expire_in
. - The job cannot access the relevant resources due to insufficient permissions.
See these additional troubleshooting steps if the job uses the needs:artifacts
:
keyword with:
For a job configured with needs:project
The could not retrieve the needed artifacts.
error can happen for a job using
needs:project
with a configuration similar to:
rspec:
needs:
- project: my-group/my-project
job: dependency-job
ref: master
artifacts: true
To troubleshoot this error, verify that:
- Project
my-group/my-project
is in a group with a Premium subscription plan. - The user running the job can access resources in
my-group/my-project
. - The
project
,job
, andref
combination exists and results in the desired dependency. - Any variables in use evaluate to the correct values.
For a job configured with needs:pipeline:job
The could not retrieve the needed artifacts.
error can happen for a job using
needs:pipeline:job
with a configuration similar to:
rspec:
needs:
- pipeline: $UPSTREAM_PIPELINE_ID
job: dependency-job
artifacts: true
To troubleshoot this error, verify that:
- The
$UPSTREAM_PIPELINE_ID
CI/CD variable is available in the current pipeline’s parent-child pipeline hierarchy. - The
pipeline
andjob
combination exists and resolves to an existing pipeline. -
dependency-job
has run and finished successfully.