On Aug 27, 2020, at 6:25 PM, Satish Balay <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, 27 Aug 2020, Satish Balay via petsc-dev wrote:

...

The above is hard for me to digest - so I think its best to frame this differently.

1. ReadTheDocs is not setup in .gitlab-ci.yml

2. We have merge_request pipelines - and web pipelines [api pipeline is similar to web]

3. I think both - web, merge_request pipelines trigger ReadTheDocs job

4. Web pipeline appears to get a 6th stage from the ReadTheDocs job [because both are run on the branch - and the hash matches]

5. Web pipelines are manually started. But MR pipelines are automatically started [I don't see an option to disable this auto start]

6. The ReadTheDocs job is run on the branch - even when triggered by merge_request pipeline. As the branch hash and the merge hash are different - they are getting listed as 2 pipelines.

And I think this separate pipeline listing by ReadTheDocs is causing grief with the MR webpage [it assumes the tests have passed]

So the likely fixes:

- ReadTheDocs triggered by MR pipeline should use the merge - and not the original branch [and not create a separate pipeline listing]. This should cut down the pipeline listing by half - somehow disable auto start of MR pipelines [this should eliminate the remaining pipeline listings.

https://gitlab.com/petsc/petsc/-/issues/360#note_402053765

Ok - I understand the 'hanging' pipeline issue better now.

- Multiple ReadTheDocs jobs can be triggered on the same commit.

- perhaps one from the web pipeline [when one starts this manually]

But but but, Jed said we had to enable MR pipelines or readthedocs won't work. So readthedocs cannot be triggered by a manual pipeline I would prefer the model that we in our scripts contact readthedocs to request they do a build, not having it automatically triggered by changes in GitLab, they may or may not support this but if they do it is hidden from Jed.

- irrespective of the above - MR pipeline is automatically triggered. And this triggers another ReadTheDocs pipeline (and this pipeline is run on the branch - not a merge of branch+master) - one might want to start a new MR pipeline with a merge with updates in master

ReadTheDocs sees the second pipeline as duplicate - and errors out.

- for some reason gitlab does not get this error message or misinterprets it - and the job is listed as 'external:pending'

Satish