You can see this error even when running the deps_complex.py test:
$ ./bin/reframe -c unittests/resources/checks_unlisted/deps_complex.py -r
[ReFrame Setup]
version: 3.2-dev1 (rev: f42347ef)
command: './bin/reframe -c unittests/resources/checks_unlisted/deps_complex.py -r'
...
* Job type: local (id=31724)
* Maintainers: []
* Failing phase: sanity
* Rerun with '-n T2 -p builtin --system generic:default'
* Reason: sanity error: 31 != 30
Sanity check failure
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAILURE INFO for T7
* Test Description: T7
* System partition: generic
* Environment: None
* Stage directory: None
* Node list: None
* Job type: batch job (id=None)
* Maintainers: []
* Failing phase: startup
* Rerun with '-n T7 -p None --system generic'
* Reason: task dependency error: dependencies failed
Unknown error.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
....
The fix is very simple, it is caused by this line. I think the final message (Sanity check failure) is not useful, and I would suggest we omit it completely. We already have the * Failing phase: <phase> line in the report.