Crash in vendor subcommand

[criemen]

Description of the bug:

 criemen@Corneliuss-MBP  ~/repos/semmle-code   main ±  bazel vendor --vendor_dir=vendor_src //...
Starting local Bazel server and connecting to it...
INFO: Invocation ID: a3f127d2-153b-400d-8a1e-55c75c5d6396
Loading: 1 packages loaded
FATAL: bazel crashed due to an internal error. Printing stack trace:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unrecoverable error while evaluating node 'REPOSITORY_DIRECTORY:@@WORKSPACE.bazel' (requested by nodes '[/private/var/tmp/_bazel_criemen/267ec2c545f0139b2caed9502387afe1]/[external/WORKSPACE.bazel]')
        at com.google.devtools.build.skyframe.AbstractParallelEvaluator$Evaluate.run(AbstractParallelEvaluator.java:550)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.concurrent.AbstractQueueVisitor$WrappedRunnable.run(AbstractQueueVisitor.java:414)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask$AdaptedRunnableAction.exec(Unknown Source)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask.doExec(Unknown Source)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool$WorkQueue.topLevelExec(Unknown Source)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.scan(Unknown Source)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.runWorker(Unknown Source)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinWorkerThread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: class com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.InputFile cannot be cast to class com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.Rule (com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.InputFile and com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.Rule are in unnamed module of loader 'app')
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.Package.getRule(Package.java:615)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.repository.ExternalPackageHelper$ExternalPackageRuleExtractor.processAndShouldContinue(ExternalPackageHelper.java:144)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.repository.ExternalPackageHelper.iterateWorkspaceFragments(ExternalPackageHelper.java:118)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.repository.ExternalPackageHelper.getRuleByName(ExternalPackageHelper.java:52)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.rules.repository.RepositoryDelegatorFunction.getRepoRuleFromWorkspace(RepositoryDelegatorFunction.java:475)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.rules.repository.RepositoryDelegatorFunction.getRepositoryRule(RepositoryDelegatorFunction.java:360)
        at com.google.devtools.build.lib.rules.repository.RepositoryDelegatorFunction.compute(RepositoryDelegatorFunction.java:154)
        at com.google.devtools.build.skyframe.AbstractParallelEvaluator$Evaluate.run(AbstractParallelEvaluator.java:461)
        ... 7 more

Presumably some symlink or something in our source root messes up the vendor subcommand - it shouldn't crash with an exception though.

Which category does this issue belong to?

No response

What's the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

No response

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

MacOS

What is the output of bazel info release?

development

If bazel info release returns development version or (@non-git), tell us how you built Bazel.

5f5d70b via bazelisk (it's a commit from the 7.4.0 branch)

What's the output of git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse HEAD ?

No response

If this is a regression, please try to identify the Bazel commit where the bug was introduced with bazelisk --bisect.

No response

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

No response

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

No response

[fmeum]

@meteorcloudy

[meteorcloudy]

REPOSITORY_DIRECTORY:@@WORKSPACE.bazel

This looks very weird, do you actually have a repo called WORKSPACE.bazel somehow? Can you provide a minimal reproducible case?

[criemen]

do you actually have a repo called WORKSPACE.bazel somehow?

No, unless one of our transitive dependencies has one (that'd be weird though).

Can you provide a minimal reproducible case?

Not anytime soon, but if you're fine with waiting then I'll get back to you eventually.

[moroten]

After running bazel vendor, I got stuck with the same error when running bazel test using Bazel 7.3.1:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unrecoverable error while evaluating node 'REPOSITORY_DIRECTORY:@@WORKSPACE' (requested by nodes '[/<redacted>/e9607a41d9]/[external/WORKSPACE]')

[moroten]

The crash loop does not get resolved by bazel clean --expunge, only by removing the vendor directory.

I can reproduce it by running

touch WORKSPACE
mkdir vendor
ln -s $(bazel info output_base)/external vendor/bazel-external
bazel test ...

[moroten]

Duplicates #22740

[meteorcloudy]

#23771 should help avoid this. A temporary solution is to add the vendor dir into .bazelignore.

[iancha1992]

A fix for this issue has been included in Bazel 7.4.0 RC1. Please test out the release candidate and report any issues as soon as possible.
If you're using Bazelisk, you can point to the latest RC by setting USE_BAZEL_VERSION=7.4.0rc1. Thanks!