Meson is unable to find ninja (ERROR: Could not detect Ninja)

[anjalirai-intel]

ERROR: Could not detect Ninja
I am trying to setup Ubuntu 22.04 for our project.

These are the versions I have in baremetal and it seems to be working fine

Found ninja-1.10.1 at /usr/bin/ninja
$ meson --version
0.63.3
$ ninja --version
1.10.1
$ cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION
VERSION_ID="22.04"
VERSION="22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy

But when i try to replicate the same on Docker environment, I get build errors from meson

ERROR: Could not detect Ninja v1.8.2 or newer

$ meson --version
0.63.3
$ ninja --version
1.10.1

I searched about this error and it has been suggested to try installing ninja with pip3 and it should work. But i tried that and still got the same error

ERROR: Could not detect Ninja v1.8.2 or newer

$ meson --version
0.63.3
$ ninja --version
1.10.2.git.kitware.jobserver-1

So, I installed meson version 0.56.2 and ninja version 1.10.1, but when you run meson command, it ends up in error ERROR: Could not detect Ninja v1.7 or newer

To Reproduce
meson.build

1. Create a docker image using this dockerfile Dockerfile
2. Start the docker container, you should be in gramine directory
3. Run this command meson setup build/ --werror --buildtype=release -Dskeleton=enabled -Ddirect=enabled -Dsgx=disabled -Dtests=enabled

Expected behavior
Build should be successful and in the end we should get Found ninja-1.10.1 at /usr/bin/ninja

system parameters
It is a plain native build
Python Version: 3.10.6
OS: Ubuntu 22.04
Meson Version: 0.56.2
Ninja Version: 1.10.1

[anjalirai-intel]

I have put debugger inside mesonbuild/environment.py. It is able to find ninja, but it throws Permissin error, even though i have set all the permissions and i am able to execute the command from terminal

/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(186)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> env_ninja = os.environ.get('NINJA', None)
(Pdb) n
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(187)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> for n in [env_ninja] if env_ninja else ['ninja', 'ninja-build', 'samu']:
(Pdb) n
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(188)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> prog = ExternalProgram(n, silent=True)
(Pdb) n
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(189)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> if not prog.found():
(Pdb) n
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(191)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> try:
(Pdb) n
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(192)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> p, found = Popen_safe(prog.command + ['--version'])[0:2]
(Pdb) prog.command
['/usr/bin/ninja']
(Pdb) n
PermissionError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/usr/bin/ninja'
> /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/mesonbuild/environment.py(192)detect_ninja_command_and_version()
-> p, found = Popen_safe(prog.command + ['--version'])[0:2]
(Pdb) c

ERROR: Could not detect Ninja v1.7 or newer

intel@109b68536923:/home/intel/anjali/gramine$ /usr/bin/ninja --version
1.10.1

ls -al /usr/bin/ninja
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 248056 Aug 30  2020 /usr/bin/ninja

[tristan957]

Might be useful to make sure the ninja Meson detects is what you think it is.

[lazka]

See scikit-build/ninja-python-distributions#157, which seems related

[henryiii]

This is only an issue with the latest release a few hours ago, older ones were fine.

[eli-schwartz]

This also seems to be happening in a docker container that is supposed to pick up a Ubuntu-packaged version of upstream unpatched ninja, not the scikit-build patchset. So yeah, that other issue is certainly unrelated.

[eli-schwartz]

I have put debugger inside mesonbuild/environment.py. It is able to find ninja, but it throws Permissin error, even though i have set all the permissions and i am able to execute the command from terminal

So the only thing that meson is doing differently basically seems to be "run it from python", very confusing...

If you start up a python console in the affected machine, does this work?

>>> import subprocess
>>> subprocess.run(['ninja', '--version'], capture_output=True)

And:

>>> from mesonbuild.mesonlib import Popen_safe
>>> Popen_safe(['ninja', '--version'])

[henryiii]

I think I'll have a patch out for the 1.11.1 issue soon. Looks like ninja 1.11.1 isn't compatible with manylinux1. Though why is it passing tests? Anyway, manylinux2010 builds don't suffer the same problem, and I can upload 2010 builds to the same release. ;)

[henryiii]

This is fixed, I believe. (edit: our problem was fixed, not this one!) manylinux2010 images are working elsewhere. The manylinux1 images might get removed at some point, but they actually do work on manylinux1 I believe (since cibuildwheel's tests passed). I've also been able to reproduce the failure and the fix in CI tests. The 1.11.1 releases is okay now.

[eli-schwartz]

Nah, still not fixed, because the original reporter wasn't using a pip installed ninja, but was using the Ubuntu packaged version without the kitware.jobserver-1 patch. ;)

It was then erroneously diagnosed as "this scikit-build/ninja-python-distributions issue looks related".

[henryiii]

Oops, sorry, was replying to all the issues, forget this one wasn't our problem. :D

[CJJLUX]

I had the same problem，Because of the “.git.kitware.jobserver-1” suffix

problem:
[root@d6b309491377 data]# /usr/bin/ninja --version
1.10.2

[root@d6b309491377 data]# ninja --version
1.11.1.git.kitware.jobserver-1

[root@d6b309491377 data]# which ninja
/usr/local/bin/ninja

solve:
cp /usr/bin/ninja /usr/local/bin/ninja

[root@d6b309491377 data]# ninja --version
1.10.2

[xclaesse]

What docker image can be used to reproduce?

[xhy2008]

On termux,it produces the same problem.