Recently we've been seeing some failures in our Azure / GitHub Actions deployment pipelines for deleting artifacts after an artifact is built/deployed to our Azure environment, with this specific log:

Run geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
  with:
    name: net-app
    failOnError: true
  env:
    AZURE_HTTP_USER_AGENT: 
Failed to list artifacts; status code 404
Error: Failed to load artifacts; debug logs may be available.

The workflow scripts themselves have not changed in months, so I suspect something has changed on the GitHub/Azure side. When I go into a GitHub Actions workflow run in GitHub when an Artifact is still in storage, I can see it in the GitHub ui with the associated workflow run. It looks like these Artifacts haven't been deleted in quite a while automatically. I verified this by looking at previous runs prior to the error and noticed the delete-artifact job in question previously produced a log of:

Run geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
  with:
    name: net-app
    failOnError: true
  env:
    AZURE_HTTP_USER_AGENT: 
Warning: Unable to delete artifact "net-app"; the artifact was not found.

So, it seems like in some ways this script was always broken, but in other ways that things have changed since it is no longer a warning and now an error.

I'm going to include the script we use as a reference.

name: Prod - Build and deploy ASP.Net Core app to Azure Web App - Coffee

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest

    env:
      ArtifactName: net-app-${{ github.run_number }}

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    
    - name: Set up Node.js v16
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: 16

    - name: Set up .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: '6.0.x'
        include-prerelease: true
        
    - name: Sets the environment for PROD
      run: .\DeploymentScripts\Configure-Net-App-Prod.ps1
      shell: powershell

    - name: Build CoffeeSPA.Web
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj
      
    - name: Build CoffeeSPA.Worker
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release CoffeeSPA.Worker\CoffeeSPA.Worker.csproj

    - name: Publish CoffeeSPA.Web
      run: dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj
     
    - name: Publish CoffeeSPA.Worker
      run: dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web/app_data/jobs/continuous/CoffeeSPA.Worker CoffeeSPA.Worker\CoffeeSPA.Worker.csproj

    - name: Upload artifact for deployment job
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: net-app
        path: ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web


  deploy-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    
    needs: 
      - build-net-app
      
    environment:
      name: 'production'
      url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }}

    steps:
      - name: Download artifact from build job
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: net-app

      - name: Deploy to Azure Web App
        id: deploy-to-webapp
        uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
        with:
          app-name: 'coffee'
          slot-name: 'Production'
          publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZUREAPPSERVICE_PUBLISHPROFILE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX }}
          package: .
          
      - name: Delete artifact
        uses: geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
        with:
          name: net-app
          failOnError: true

So... what exactly is the remediation here to make sure Artifacts are deleted correctly? Is it delete-artifact@v1 that's the problem? Is it the GitHub Actions workflow script above? Is it a mixture of both?

I suspect the "net-app"'s final upload destination from the Workflow script (ex: GUID/workflow-job-run-some-GUID/artifacts/some-GUID.zip) isn't being carried through the script to the delete step/job geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1, but I'm not sure on that.

Recently we've been seeing some failures in our Azure / GitHub Actions deployment pipelines for deleting artifacts after an artifact is built/deployed to our Azure environment, with this specific log:

Run geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
  with:
    name: net-app
    failOnError: true
  env:
    AZURE_HTTP_USER_AGENT: 
Failed to list artifacts; status code 404
Error: Failed to load artifacts; debug logs may be available.

The workflow scripts themselves have not changed in months, so I suspect something has changed on the GitHub/Azure side. When I go into a GitHub Actions workflow run in GitHub when an Artifact is still in storage, I can see it in the GitHub ui with the associated workflow run. It looks like these Artifacts haven't been deleted in quite a while automatically. I verified this by looking at previous runs prior to the error and noticed the delete-artifact job in question previously produced a log of:

Run geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
  with:
    name: net-app
    failOnError: true
  env:
    AZURE_HTTP_USER_AGENT: 
Warning: Unable to delete artifact "net-app"; the artifact was not found.

So, it seems like in some ways this script was always broken, but in other ways that things have changed since it is no longer a warning and now an error.

I'm going to include the script we use as a reference.

name: Prod - Build and deploy ASP.Net Core app to Azure Web App - Coffee

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest

    env:
      ArtifactName: net-app-${{ github.run_number }}

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    
    - name: Set up Node.js v16
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: 16

    - name: Set up .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: '6.0.x'
        include-prerelease: true
        
    - name: Sets the environment for PROD
      run: .\DeploymentScripts\Configure-Net-App-Prod.ps1
      shell: powershell

    - name: Build CoffeeSPA.Web
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj
      
    - name: Build CoffeeSPA.Worker
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release CoffeeSPA.Worker\CoffeeSPA.Worker.csproj

    - name: Publish CoffeeSPA.Web
      run: dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj
     
    - name: Publish CoffeeSPA.Worker
      run: dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web/app_data/jobs/continuous/CoffeeSPA.Worker CoffeeSPA.Worker\CoffeeSPA.Worker.csproj

    - name: Upload artifact for deployment job
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: net-app
        path: ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web


  deploy-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    
    needs: 
      - build-net-app
      
    environment:
      name: 'production'
      url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }}

    steps:
      - name: Download artifact from build job
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: net-app

      - name: Deploy to Azure Web App
        id: deploy-to-webapp
        uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
        with:
          app-name: 'coffee'
          slot-name: 'Production'
          publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZUREAPPSERVICE_PUBLISHPROFILE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX }}
          package: .
          
      - name: Delete artifact
        uses: geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1
        with:
          name: net-app
          failOnError: true

So... what exactly is the remediation here to make sure Artifacts are deleted correctly? Is it delete-artifact@v1 that's the problem? Is it the GitHub Actions workflow script above? Is it a mixture of both?

I suspect the "net-app"'s final upload destination from the Workflow script (ex: https://productionresultssa14.blob.core.windows/actions-results/some GUID/workflow-job-run-some-GUID/artifacts/some-GUID.zip) isn't being carried through the script to the delete step/job geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1, but I'm not sure on that.

• azure
• asp-core
• github-actions

• Update artifact name to match across all steps and use actions/delete-artifact@v3 instead of geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1 for better reliability. – Sirra Sneha Commented Mar 17 at 4:09

1 Answer 1

The error you're encountering is because the delete-artifact@v1 action is failing to locate the uploaded artifact.

• In your upload-artifact step, the artifact is named net-app, but the environment variable (ArtifactName) is set as net-app-${{ github.run_number }}. This mismatch causes the delete-artifact step to look for net-app, which may not exist if the artifact was uploaded with a different name, leading to the failure.

  Please refer this github doc for better understanding of upload/delete artifacts.

• GitHub auto-deletes artifacts after a set period (default 90 days). If already deleted, delete-artifact may show a `404` error.

To resolve the issue,
Use the same artifact name across upload, download, and delete steps:

env:
  ArtifactName: net-app

• Replace geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v1 with actions/delete-artifact@v3, as it's the official version.

• Add continue-on-error to Prevent Failures,
  If the artifact is already deleted, it avoids breaking the workflow.

Here's the complete Workflow file after making above changes.

Workflow file:

name: Prod - Build and deploy ASP.Net Core app to Azure Web App - Coffee

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

env:
  ArtifactName: net-app 

jobs:
  build-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      
      - name: Set up .NET Core
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
        with:
          dotnet-version: '6.0.x'
      
      - name: Build CoffeeSPA.Web
        run: dotnet build --configuration Release CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj

      - name: Publish CoffeeSPA.Web
        run: dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web CoffeeSPA.Web\CoffeeSPA.Web.csproj

      - name: Upload artifact for deployment
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: ${{ env.ArtifactName }} 
          path: ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/Web

  deploy-net-app:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    needs: build-net-app

    steps:
      - name: Download artifact from build job
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: ${{ env.ArtifactName }}

      - name: Deploy to Azure Web App
        id: deploy-to-webapp
        uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
        with:
          app-name: 'coffee'
          slot-name: 'Production'
          publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZUREAPPSERVICE_PUBLISHPROFILE }}
          package: .

      - name: Delete artifact (Ignore if not found)
        uses: actions/delete-artifact@v3 
        continue-on-error: true  
        with:
          name: ${{ env.ArtifactName }}