cabal test all "Failed to find the installed unit"

[meooow25]

Describe the bug
cabal test all fails with an error

Error: [Cabal-9341]
Failed to find the installed unit 'containers-tests-0-inplace-test-utils' in package database stack.

This showed up in haskell/containers#1191.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

$ git clone -b check-laws https://github.com/meooow25/containers.git
$ cd containers
$ sed -i 's/containers\//-- &/' cabal.project  # optional, to save some time
$ cabal test all

Expected behavior
Tests compile and run.

System information

$ cabal --version
cabal-install version 3.16.1.0
compiled using version 3.16.1.0 of the Cabal library (in-tree)
$ ghc --version
The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 9.14.1

Additional context
While looking this error up I found #10046, which may be related. The workaround there of doing cabal build all first works here too.

[Mikolaj]

I can't find any test component in https://github.com/meooow25/containers/blob/check-laws/containers/containers.cabal. Am I missing something? Or is it just a report that cabal should have said "there are no test components defined" and instead it shows a cryptic error?

[meooow25]

The tests are in https://github.com/meooow25/containers/blob/check-laws/containers-tests/containers-tests.cabal

[philderbeast]

I am unable to reproduce the error:

$ git rev-parse HEAD
00d7453d7ce45327da91cd0b7b72ee2334924408

$ git branch
* check-laws
  master

$ sed -i 's/containers\//-- &/' cabal.project

$ git diff
diff --git a/cabal.project b/cabal.project
index bf470f01..79713f60 100644
--- a/cabal.project
+++ b/cabal.project
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 packages:
-  containers/
+  -- containers/
   containers-tests/
 -- Tip: Remove containers from the above list when making changes locally.
 -- This avoids recompiling some dependencies (that depend on containers) when

$ ~/.ghcup/bin/cabal test all
Resolving dependencies...
Build profile: -w ghc-9.14.1 -O1
In order, the following will be built (use -v for more details):
 - containers-tests-0 (lib) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (lib:test-utils) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:listutils-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:graph-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:bitqueue-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:tree-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:set-strictness-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:set-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:seq-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:map-strictness-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:map-strict-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:map-lazy-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:intset-strictness-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:intset-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:intmap-strictness-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:intmap-strict-properties) (first run)
 - containers-tests-0 (test:intmap-lazy-properties) (first run)
...
All 171 tests passed (4.84s)
Test suite seq-properties: PASS
Test suite logged to:
/home/.../cabal-test-containers/dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-linux/ghc-9.14.1/containers-tests-0/t/seq-properties/test/containers-tests-0-seq-properties.log
1 of 1 test suites (1 of 1 test cases) passed.

$ ~/.ghcup/bin/cabal target all:tests
Fully qualified target forms:
 - containers-tests:test:bitqueue-properties
 - containers-tests:test:graph-properties
 - containers-tests:test:intmap-lazy-properties
 - containers-tests:test:intmap-strict-properties
 - containers-tests:test:intmap-strictness-properties
 - containers-tests:test:intset-properties
 - containers-tests:test:intset-strictness-properties
 - containers-tests:test:listutils-properties
 - containers-tests:test:map-lazy-properties
 - containers-tests:test:map-strict-properties
 - containers-tests:test:map-strictness-properties
 - containers-tests:test:seq-properties
 - containers-tests:test:set-properties
 - containers-tests:test:set-strictness-properties
 - containers-tests:test:tree-properties
Found 15 targets matching all:tests.

 $ ~/.ghcup/bin/cabal --numeric-version
3.16.1.0

[geekosaur]

FWIW I reproduced it on the first run but not the second. But the log (with -v3) of the first run doesn't show the failures it complains about, just says they failed afterward.

[geekosaur]

Actually this makes me wonder if it's a concurrency thing.

[meooow25]

That's possible, since it affected only some of the runs in haskell/containers#1191.

Edit: I misremembered, it affected both workflows that had cabal test all.

Here's the log for one of the failures: https://github.com/haskell/containers/actions/runs/23693118396/job/69023882840
It happens reliably on my machine though if I repeat with cabal clean and cabal test all.

[Mikolaj]

It would be great to find a reproducer that fails more or less consistently. Regardless, does anybody have a guess what's going wrong and how to fix it?