XPlatReleaseNotesGenerator throws TypeError: Cannot read property 'id' of null when enriching work items

[Smiffc0]

Hi Richard and Community

Any help and/or insights offered on the below will be most appreciated.

I have been using the X-Platform release notes generator without issue for a few months in an Azure DevOps yml pipeline but in the last couple of weeks the task completes with a warning and does not populate the release notes mark down file. I see this is similar to the issue opened here: #814 but there is not a posted solution.

An error is thrown when looking for parents or parents and children of a WI - see below:

Looking for parents and children of WI

TypeError: Cannot read property 'id' of null
    at relatedWorkItems.find.element (/_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:746:67)
    at Array.find (<anonymous>)
Total Builds: [0]
    at /_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:746:43
Total Commits: [118]
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
Total Workitems: [23]
    at fulfilled (_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:5:58)
Total Related Workitems (Parent/Children): [0]
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)

and

Looking for parents of WI

TypeError: Cannot read property 'id' of null
    at allRelatedWorkItems.find.element (/_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:802:74)
    at Array.find (<anonymous>)
    at /_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:802:50
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at /_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:8:71
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at __awaiter (/_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:4:12)
    at getAllParentWorkitems (/_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:786:12)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/_tasks/XplatGenerateReleaseNotes_7b0a5887-75c4-4ade-a915-f92a93c934cb/3.81.15/ReleaseNotesFunctions.js:1555:46)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)

The error is not thrown consistently across different pipeline runs. For example:

Pipeline run 1: 
	WI [123] - enriched
	WI [456] - throws error looking for parents
	WI [789] - enriched
	
Pipeline run 2:
	WI [123] - throws error looking for parents and children
	WI [456] - enriched
	WI [789] - enriched

No changes have been made to WIs, PRs, Commits etc. between runs

I have turned on system diagnostics and dump to console and have been going over the various logs and dumps but so far have not seen anything strange.

Running the test console against the same builds completes without generating any errors and produces a full mark down file. Both the test console and the yml pipelne task use identical parameters, so I would expect the output of each to also be identical for the same build.

[rfennell]

I fear it is throttling, and there is not much I can do about that. I tried adding retry code, but it did not work well. I also have had an open issues with Microsoft for years without any solution.

Sorry I don't have a great answer at present

[Smiffc0]

After running many more tests I have determined throttling is not a factor. The behaviour I am seeing consistently is that the list of work items returned is different when running the yml pipeline compared to running the test console. Both the console and the pipeline are running against the same build with identical parameters but the pipeline returns 26 work items whereas the console returns 7.

For my latest test I kicked off the pipeline and then ran the test console straight after. There was no activity on the repo/branches in the meantime

The error is thrown when the pipeline tries to expand one of the 'extra' work items. Any ideas on why there is such a discrepancy in items returned.

Many thanks

[rfennell]

The function that produces the payload.json and then processes this into the output file is the same for both in a task and local running. There are just two wrappers, one for each use case. There is the chance I have made an error passing parameters in.

Could you send me the debug log of both runs (anonymised as much as you feel is needed) and I will try to see why they are different?

[Smiffc0]

Apologies for delay in replying but other work commitments took precedence. Please see attached debug logs. Comparing the two files the table below shows the line numbers where the two diverge. Let me know if you need more info or detail

yml	test console	notes
329	221
1623	1535/1731	96 commits in yml Vs 98 in test console
1628	1736	62 WIs in yml Vs 58 in console
1717	1825	error in yml Vs no error in console
1726	2961	641 commits in yml Vs 647 in console
1728	2963	0 related WIs in yml Vs 86 in console
1733	2968	0 PRs in yml Vs 59 in console

Parameters for both:
checkStage: true
sortCS: true
sortWi: true
dumpPayloadToConsole: false
dumpPayloadToFile: false
replaceFile: true
customHandlebarsExtensionFile: 'customHandlebars.js'
customHandlebarsExtensionFolder: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/TDP_Release_Notes/Assets'
getParentsAndChildren: true
getAllParents: true
getIndirectPullRequests: false
stopOnError: false
considerPartiallySuccessfulReleases: false
checkForManuallyLinkedWI: true

releaseNotes-ymlLog.txt
releaseNotes-testConsoleLog.txt

[rfennell]

Looking that the logs the key difference seems to be (in the consolelog ln 329)

There has been no past successful build for this stage, we need to get the details for all past builds
##vso[task.debug]Found 109 builds of this definition
##vso[task.debug]Getting the details of the first build 119371
##vso[task.debug]Getting the details of the changes between the first build 119371 and the current build 129711

Whereas in the YML build log we see

Found required stage Deploy to DEV in the state 2 with the result 0 state for build 119371
Using the build 119371
Getting the details between 119371 and 129711
Using workaround for build API limitation (see issue #349)

So it looks like it cannot find your target stage DeployDEV when running in the console run.

This is important so the logic used to find WI/CS is different between the two code paths. Which I think explains the difference.

So the question is why the stage match is failing for the console - I suspect the stageName parameter is incorrect

[Smiffc0]

The stageName parameter was indeed different, as you pointed out. I corrected and re-ran but the yml task is still throwing the error (yml log line 1650). The test console runs successfully.

The yml task states it looks for manually linked WIs (yml line 310) whereas the console does not. Both the yml task and test console have checkForManuallyLinkedWI = true

Although both find the same number of builds (line 2 both files), the yml task returns 65 WIs (yml line 1548) compared to 64 WIs for the test console (test line 1631) - I assume this extra WI is because of the above check for manually linked WI. The Total Related Workitems (Parent/Children) also differs: 0 for yml (yml line 1658) versus 95 for test console (line 2890)

releaseNotes-ymlLog_v2.txt
releaseNotes-testConsoleLog_v2.txt