Packer - Failed to install - git timeout, and no post install hook

[bmulholland]

Installing with packer with use({ 'mrjones2014/dash.nvim', requires = { 'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim' }, run = 'make install' }), I get a "Failed to install" when running a PackerSync. Thereafter, I get "module "libdash_nvim" not found, did you set up Dash.nvim with make install as a post-install hook?"

Debugging a bit, I found two things:

1. Git times out frequently: ...m/site/pack/packer/start/packer.nvim/lua/packer/jobs.lua:87: Killing git due to timeout!. Now, the connection I'm on is a little weak, but it still downloaded from github at ~500kb/s. I worked around this for now by increasing timeout to 120s (from 60s). None of my other plugins needed this, though...
2. Having worked around that, the post install hook doesn't seem to run? After the packer sync, I guess it tries to load the module, because the debug log shows "Vim(lua):module "libdash_nvim" not found, did you set up Dash.nvim with make install as a post-install hook? See :h dash-install". So maybe that failing is preventing the hook from executing?

I solved the problem for now by cding to the dash dir and running make install manually.

[mrjones2014]

Hmm, I wonder if this is because I'm including binaries in the repo. Might have a pretty fat .git directory. I can maybe try pruning the .git directory, or installing the binaries another way.

[bmulholland]

Yeah that might help with the first part. I imagine it's pretty easy to do a fresh git clone and see how long it takes?

[knpwrs]

I'm currently seeing the "Failed to install" error and subsequent "module libdash_nvim not found" error. Running make install in the cloned directory works. I can't see what's actually failing in the packer output though.

[mrjones2014]

Hmm, I'm really curious if it has to do with the download size. Maybe we can make it so the binaries aren't stored in the repo, but are instead downloaded from Github Releases as part of make install. I'd need to update my GitHub Actions CI to publish the binaries with each release.

I wonder if there's a better way.

[mrjones2014]

Frustrating that I can't reproduce this on my machine. It's difficult to diagnose the issue.

[knpwrs]

I don't think it's a repo size thing for me. It's not timing out or anything over here. Is there a way to get more verbose output from make install so we can take a peek at what's happening? make install doesn't have any output for me whether it's run from packer or from the shell.

[mrjones2014]

make install just runs ./scripts/install-for-architecture.bash which has the following contents:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

rm -rf ./lua/libdash_nvim.so ./lua/deps/

if [[ "$(uname -m)" == "arm64" ]]; then
  cp ./bin/arm/libdash_nvim.so ./lua/
  mkdir -p ./lua/deps/
  cp -r ./bin/arm/deps/ ./lua/deps/
else
  cp ./bin/x86/libdash_nvim.so ./lua/
  mkdir -p ./lua/deps/
  cp -r ./bin/x86/deps/ ./lua/deps/
fi

I wonder if this line is the issue since these won't exist on initial install: rm -rf ./lua/libdash_nvim.so ./lua/deps/

but that doesn't explain why it would work when run manually.

[knpwrs]

I wonder if this line is the issue since these won't exist on initial install: rm -rf ./lua/libdash_nvim.so ./lua/deps/

but that doesn't explain why it would work when run manually.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem unless you put set -e at the top of the script.

Maybe another option would be for the Lua plugin to decide where to look for the binary rather than copy a specific binary to a known location?

[mrjones2014]

Yeah, @knpwrs that was another option I had in mind when coming up with the install flow. I can try doing that instead of the make install probably this week or weekend.

[mrjones2014]

@knpwrs @bmulholland Is this the error you were getting?

[packer.nvim] [ERROR 16:28:11] async.lua:20: Error in coroutine: ...ack/packer/start/packer.nvim/lua/packer/plugin_utils.lua:204: Vim(lua):module "libdash_nvim" not found, did you set up Dash.nvim with make install as a post-install hook? See :h dash-install

If so, that's my own check, and I probably just need to tweak that and how it's run.

[knpwrs]

That's the error I get when starting Neovim, but I'm also getting a "failed to install" from Packer (when it runs make install).

[mrjones2014]

Right @knpwrs I think you're getting "Failed to install" from packer because it's running my startup check before make install has been run, which calls vim.api.nvim_err_writeln if make install hasn't been run yet 🤦

I need to figure out how to not error if it's during a packer install, or maybe move the error checking to happen the first time you try to load the module, or something like that.

[mrjones2014]

Simply using print instead of vim.api.nvim_err_writeln should fix it.

[mrjones2014]

@knpwrs @bmulholland it should be fixed now.

[knpwrs]

Nice, that fixed it! Thank you!