permission issue causing failure to cache on windows

[geemus]

Description:
Post job cleanup fails with permission issues:

Post job cleanup.
"C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\tar.exe" --posix -cf cache.tzst --exclude cache.tzst -P -C D:/a/anchor/anchor --files-from manifest.txt --force-local --use-compress-program "zstd -T0"
/usr/bin/tar: C\:/npm/cache/_logs/2024-04-29T15_30_50_704Z-debug-0.log: Cannot open: Permission denied
/usr/bin/tar: C\:/npm/cache/_logs/2024-04-29T15_30_59_272Z-debug-0.log: Cannot open: Permission denied
/usr/bin/tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
Warning: Failed to save: "C:\Program failed with error: The process 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\tar.exe' failed with exit code 2

Action version:
actions/setup-node@v4

Platform:

• Ubuntu
• macOS
• Windows

Runner type:

• Hosted
• Self-hosted

Tools version:
node 20.10.0
npm (? I didn't specify, so the default I suppose)

Repro steps:
Here are what I think would be the relevant bits from our setup:

      - name: Setup Node (prism)
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          cache: npm
          node-version-file: '.tool-versions'
      - run: npm install

I'll note that we just have a package.json and no lock at present in case that is relevant.

Expected behavior:
I expected the caching to "just work" with this setup, as it does with the same invocation on mac/ubuntu.

Actual behavior:
Setup node and the rest of the action work fine, but the cleanup/caching fails (so there is never a cache to be used).

[aparnajyothi-y]

Hello @geemus, Thank you for creating this issue and we will look into it :)

[priya-kinthali]

Hello @geemus 👋,
Thank you for sharing the details!
I tried to replicate the error using the provided code snippet, but was unable to do so. By default, the actions/setup-node action looks for a dependency lock file in your repository's root. If this file is not found, the setup step will fail. You can find more information in this related document.
As I couldn't reproduce your issue, it would be really helpful if you could share a link to a minimal reproduction of the problem for further investigation. Thank you in advance:)

[geemus]

Thanks for checking on this. I changed some things to ensure there is a lock file present, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. FWIW we run the same jobs on mac and ubuntu and they worked fine both before and after (and everything but the cache save afterward seems to work on windows). I also tried to setup a minimal reproduction case, but so far I haven't figured out how to get it to fail (it seems to work just fine, probably similar to what you saw).

[priya-kinthali]

Hello there👋,
Any luck creating a reproducible scenario? This would greatly help us in diagnosing and fixing the issue. Thanks in advance for your cooperation:)