`after.always` doesn't run if there are uncaught exceptions

[arve0]

Hi! This is the second time I read the documentation at README.md and find that the feature I'm using is not yet released (after some debugging). I'm not sure what it was last time, but this time it is after.always found in commits since release.

Any thoughts about stabilizing/syncing the docs with the release cycle?

[sindresorhus]

after.always was in the 0.15.0 release. If you're referring to https://github.com/avajs/ava/commit/2e984380c4df2bfe5a0af2ec37a970f4001c9f53, it's just updating the TypeScript definition.

Any thoughts about stabilizing/syncing the docs with the release cycle?

New features always come with docs. That's a requirement.

[arve0]

Hm. I'll recreate my issue, give me some seconds.

[arve0]

OK, this is actually a bug. This code will reproduce:

var test = require('ava');
var r = require('request-promise');

test.before(() => console.log('before'));

test('failing test', (t) =>
  r('http://httpbin.org/status/400')
    .catch(err => t.true(err.statusCode === 200)));

test('another failing test', (t) =>
  r({
    uri: 'http://httpbin.org/status/400',
    method: 'POST',
    body: { should: 'be string' } // this will throw
  }).catch(err => t.true(err.statusCode === 200)));

test.after.always(() => console.log('after'));

Seems to be a race condition. after runs if running test serially or if one of the tests is omitted.

https://asciinema.org/a/8z74ozt2e1tahjlqlx3mnj774

[arve0]

Throws from a place ava is unable to catch? Might not really an issue, as this is misuse of request-promise, as body should be a string or json should be set to true.

[arve0]

Simpler test case:

var test = require('ava');

test.before(() => console.log('before'));

test.cb('another failing test', (t) => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    t.true(true);
    throw new Error('catch me');
  }, 1);
});

test.after.always(() => console.log('after'));

Output

before

   2 exceptions

   1. Uncaught Exception
   Error: catch me
    Timeout._onTimeout (test.js:8:11)

   ✖ Test results were not received from test.js

Is this expected?

[jamestalmage]

We shut the process down immediately if an uncaught exception happens, so after.always isn't guaranteed to fire in that case.

I guess we could trigger after.always in the case of uncaught exceptions.

[arve0]

Nice when using --watch, cleaning state in after and unintentionally writing something wrong in your test.

[jamestalmage]

You will always be able to create situations where your cleanup code fails to do what you want, even with after.always.

import test from 'ava';
import mkdirp from 'mkdirp';
import rimraf from 'rimraf';

test.cb(t => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    mkdirp('some/deeply/nested/directory');
  }, 20);

  setTimeout(() => {
    cb();
    throw new Error('woops');
  }, 10);
});

test.after.always.cb(t => {
  rimraf('some/deeply', t.end); // <= this is likely executing before the `mkdirp` line.
});

Instead of banking on the system being left in a clean state by a previous run, I recommend using before / beforeEach to ensure system state before running the test.

function cleanup(t) {
  if (fs.exists('some/deeply')) {
    rimraf('some/deeply', t.end);
  }
}

test.before.cb(cleanup);

// if leaving that directory hanging around bothers you:
test.after.cb(cleanup);

[arve0]

Adding context, the before/after is starting/stopping the rethink database, which is quite expensive (~2-3 seconds).

[arve0]

Went for checking if database and server are alive:

let db, server;
test.cb.before((t) => {
  let timeout = 0;
  if (child.spawnSync('pgrep', ['-lf', 'rethinkdb']).status === 1) {
    console.log('---- STARTING DATABASE ----');
    db = child.spawn('rethinkdb', [], { cwd: __dirname, stdio: 'inherit' });
    timeout += 3000;
  }
  if (child.spawnSync('pgrep', ['-lf', '(node|nodemon) index.js']).status === 1) {
    console.log('---- STARTING SERVER ----');
    server = child.fork('index.js', [], { cwd: __dirname, stdio: 'inherit' });
    timeout += 100;
  }
  // wait for server to start
  function wait () {
    request(HOST + 'captcha')
      .then(() => t.end())
      .catch(wait);
  }
  setTimeout(wait, timeout);
});

Drawback: not cross platform.

[novemberborn]

Uncaught exceptions crash the worker process. We can't really make any guarantees about whether after hooks are run. Documenting it would be good though, so 👍 @arve0 for your PR.

[arve0]

Thanks for the help and clarifications :+1:

[MMcKester]

Hi, as far as I understand from this PR, test.after.always does NOT always run, is that correct? Because the startup still states to register a hook that will **always** run once your tests and other hooks complete. I just noticed as well here that an uncaught exception does indeed NOT execute this.

[novemberborn]

Hey @Githubber2021, I think this comment still stands:

Uncaught exceptions crash the worker process. We can't really make any guarantees about whether after hooks are run.

[fcastilloec]

Does anybody know of a workaround for this? In my case, a process in the before hook might not load and hence timeout. This program only outputs errors and messages to a file (there's no console whatsoever). I was counting on using the after.always hook to read the error file and print it on the terminal even if my before hook timeouts or errors. I could run a program doing this if ava fails but I really would like to have it integrated as part of my test. Any way to force ava to run something at the end, no matter what?

[novemberborn]

@fcastilloec you could use t.try() (though I don't recall if that's available in hooks). It lets you observe the outcome and should let you set a separate timeout. That way if there's an error or a timeout you can then run some other code before proceeding with the failure.