Install of mercurial aborts with assertion failed (size_ < capacity_) in attr-set.hh

[tenarchits]

Describe the bug
Running nix-env --install mercurial on current Mac (M1 running x86 binaries) fails with

$ nix-env --install mercurial
warning: there are multiple derivations named 'mercurial-5.6'; using the first one
installing 'mercurial-5.6'
Assertion failed: (size_ < capacity_), function push_back, file src/libexpr/attr-set.hh, line 54.
Abort trap: 6

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. nix-env --install mercurial

Additional context
Several bugs reference this error message (NixOS/nix#3140, #72034). It appears that bug was fixed in Nix 2.3.4. I am running 2.3.10 and still seeing the same error message.

Notify maintainers
@edolstra

Metadata

$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"x86_64-darwin"`
 - host os: `Darwin 20.3.0, macOS 10.16`
 - multi-user?: `no`
 - sandbox: `no`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3.10`
 - channels(archit): `"nixpkgs-21.03pre268211.8e364d26848"`
 - nixpkgs: `/Users/archit/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
attribute: mercurial
# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:

[tenarchits]

Switching to nixpkgs-20.09 solves the problem.

$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"x86_64-darwin"`
 - host os: `Darwin 20.3.0, macOS 10.16`
 - multi-user?: `no`
 - sandbox: `no`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3.10`
 - channels(archit): `"nixpkgs-20.09pre245857.41fe9fd6277, nixpkgs-20.09-darwin-20.09-darwin"`
 - nixpkgs: `/Users/archit/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

[strager]

I also observed this crash when installing mercurial on my non-M1 macOS machine and on Linux. Upgrading Nix didn't fix the crash, but switching to nixpkgs-20.09 did fix the crash.

[michalrudowicz]

Similar problem here, when trying to install profanity.

❯ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.10.15-200.fc33.x86_64, Fedora, 33 (KDE Plasma)`
 - multi-user?: `no`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3.10`
 - channels(rudowicz): `"nixpkgs-21.05pre271734.aed173ff970"`
 - nixpkgs: `/home/rudowicz/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

❯ nix-env -i profanity
installing 'profanity-0.10.0'
nix-env: src/libexpr/attr-set.hh:54: void nix::Bindings::push_back(const nix::Attr&): Assertion `size_ < capacity_' failed.
[1]    23341 IOT instruction (core dumped)  nix-env -i profanity

[michalrudowicz]

In my case the problem is gone by switching back to the nixos-20.09 channel.

[ianthehenry]

As an alternative workaround that doesn't require switching channels, you can do this:

$ cat ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix
{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
      mercurialHack = pkgs.buildEnv {
        name = "mercurial-workaround";
        paths = [ mercurial ];
      };
    };
}

Then nix-env -iA nixpkgs.mercurialHack instead of nixpkgs.mercurial.

[NilsIrl]

Fixed by NixOS/nix#4411