Gradle "parsing failed" upon clean test run

[jglapa]

Expected Behavior

./gradlew cleanTest test --no-daemon

the command used to work but after upgrading to grails 7 it fails with dubious error message.
It appears it fails in a clean environment e.g. ci build, locally it passes but if executed without any cache it also fails.

Actual Behaviour

the test job fails with just parsing failed message, when adding --info the following is observed:

[2025-10-24T06:29:05.820Z] > Task :compileTestJava NO-SOURCE
[2025-10-24T06:29:05.820Z] Skipping task ':compileTestJava' as it has no source files and no previous output files.
[2025-10-24T06:29:05.821Z] Resolve mutations for :compileTestGroovy (Thread[included builds,5,main]) started.
[2025-10-24T06:29:05.821Z] :compileTestGroovy (Thread[included builds,5,main]) started.
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] 
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] > Task :compileTestGroovy
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] Custom actions are attached to task ':compileTestGroovy'.
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] Caching disabled for task ':compileTestGroovy' because:
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z]   Gradle does not know how file 'build/grailsGroovyCompilerConfig.groovy' was created (output property '$1'). Task output caching requires exclusive access to output paths to guarantee correctness (i.e. multiple tasks are not allowed to produce output in the same location).
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] Task ':compileTestGroovy' is not up-to-date because:
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z]   No history is available.
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] The input changes require a full rebuild for incremental task ':compileTestGroovy'.
[2025-10-24T06:29:09.365Z] Compilation mode: in-process compilation
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] parsing failed
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] 
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] > Task :compileTestGroovy FAILED
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] 
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] 
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] 
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] * What went wrong:
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] Execution failed for task ':compileTestGroovy'.
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] > Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details.
[2025-10-24T06:29:44.509Z] 

there are no more details included, when trying the same with --stacktrace, there's an exception but not revealing a lot:

2025-10-24T08:37:10.372+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter] org.gradle.api.tasks.TaskExecutionException: Execution failed for task ':compileTestGroovy'.
2025-10-24T08:37:10.372+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.lambda$executeIfValid$1(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:130)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.372+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.Try$Failure.ifSuccessfulOrElse(Try.java:293)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.executeIfValid(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:128)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:116)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ProblemsTaskPathTrackingTaskExecuter.execute(ProblemsTaskPathTrackingTaskExecuter.java:41)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.FinalizePropertiesTaskExecuter.execute(FinalizePropertiesTaskExecuter.java:46)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ResolveTaskExecutionModeExecuter.execute(ResolveTaskExecutionModeExecuter.java:51)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.execute(SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.java:57)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.execute(SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.java:74)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.CatchExceptionTaskExecuter.execute(CatchExceptionTaskExecuter.java:36)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.EventFiringTaskExecuter$1.executeTask(EventFiringTaskExecuter.java:77)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.EventFiringTaskExecuter$1.call(EventFiringTaskExecuter.java:55)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.EventFiringTaskExecuter$1.call(EventFiringTaskExecuter.java:52)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner$CallableBuildOperationWorker.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:210)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner$CallableBuildOperationWorker.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:205)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner$2.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:67)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner$2.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:60)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:167)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner.execute(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:60)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.DefaultBuildOperationRunner.call(DefaultBuildOperationRunner.java:54)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.EventFiringTaskExecuter.execute(EventFiringTaskExecuter.java:52)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.plan.LocalTaskNodeExecutor.execute(LocalTaskNodeExecutor.java:42)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.373+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskExecutionGraph$InvokeNodeExecutorsAction.execute(DefaultTaskExecutionGraph.java:331)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskExecutionGraph$InvokeNodeExecutorsAction.execute(DefaultTaskExecutionGraph.java:318)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskExecutionGraph$BuildOperationAwareExecutionAction.lambda$execute$0(DefaultTaskExecutionGraph.java:314)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.CurrentBuildOperationRef.with(CurrentBuildOperationRef.java:85)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskExecutionGraph$BuildOperationAwareExecutionAction.execute(DefaultTaskExecutionGraph.java:314)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskExecutionGraph$BuildOperationAwareExecutionAction.execute(DefaultTaskExecutionGraph.java:303)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.plan.DefaultPlanExecutor$ExecutorWorker.execute(DefaultPlanExecutor.java:459)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.execution.plan.DefaultPlanExecutor$ExecutorWorker.run(DefaultPlanExecutor.java:376)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:64)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.AbstractManagedExecutor$1.run(AbstractManagedExecutor.java:48)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter] Caused by: org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.CompilationFailedException: Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details.
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.ApiGroovyCompiler.execute(ApiGroovyCompiler.java:297)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.ApiGroovyCompiler.execute(ApiGroovyCompiler.java:67)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.GroovyCompilerFactory$DaemonSideCompiler.execute(GroovyCompilerFactory.java:115)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.GroovyCompilerFactory$DaemonSideCompiler.execute(GroovyCompilerFactory.java:99)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.compile.daemon.AbstractIsolatedCompilerWorkerExecutor$CompilerWorkAction.execute(AbstractIsolatedCompilerWorkerExecutor.java:78)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.DefaultWorkerServer.execute(DefaultWorkerServer.java:63)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractClassLoaderWorker$1.create(AbstractClassLoaderWorker.java:54)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractClassLoaderWorker$1.create(AbstractClassLoaderWorker.java:48)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.classloader.ClassLoaderUtils.executeInClassloader(ClassLoaderUtils.java:100)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.374+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.AbstractClassLoaderWorker.executeInClassLoader(AbstractClassLoaderWorker.java:48)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.IsolatedClassloaderWorker.run(IsolatedClassloaderWorker.java:49)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.IsolatedClassloaderWorker.run(IsolatedClassloaderWorker.java:30)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.WorkerDaemonServer.run(WorkerDaemonServer.java:108)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.workers.internal.WorkerDaemonServer.run(WorkerDaemonServer.java:77)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.process.internal.worker.request.WorkerAction.lambda$run$1(WorkerAction.java:150)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.process.internal.worker.child.WorkerLogEventListener.withWorkerLoggingProtocol(WorkerLogEventListener.java:41)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.process.internal.worker.request.WorkerAction.lambda$run$2(WorkerAction.java:150)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.operations.CurrentBuildOperationRef.with(CurrentBuildOperationRef.java:85)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.process.internal.worker.request.WorkerAction.run(WorkerAction.java:142)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:77)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:36)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.dispatch.ReflectionDispatch.dispatch(ReflectionDispatch.java:24)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.remote.internal.hub.MessageHubBackedObjectConnection$DispatchWrapper.dispatch(MessageHubBackedObjectConnection.java:182)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.remote.internal.hub.MessageHubBackedObjectConnection$DispatchWrapper.dispatch(MessageHubBackedObjectConnection.java:164)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.remote.internal.hub.MessageHub$Handler.run(MessageHub.java:414)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:64)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]   at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.AbstractManagedExecutor$1.run(AbstractManagedExecutor.java:48)
2025-10-24T08:37:10.375+0200 [ERROR] [org.gradle.internal.buildevents.BuildExceptionReporter]

Steps To Reproduce

I'm not able to reproduce this in an isolated example.
I was suspecting a "bad" test but when running a subset of tests ( tried bisecting to get possibly the problematic spec) it didn't reveal much.
It's as if some kind of race condition is in place.
A workaround I found is to run the tests in 2 phases :

./gradlew clean classes --no-daemon && ./gradlew test --no-daemon

this works reliably

Environment Information

No response

Example Application

No response

Version

7.0.0

[jdaugherty]

We need a reproducing project to debug this further. It's highly likely there's a cache or some temporary state that has caused this.

[jglapa]

@jdaugherty any pointer you could give me on which to look more closely in this regard?

I'm dealing with a fairly big project and I'm struggling to reproduce this. I tried various things already:

• since I'm using gradle submodules with embedded inlined plugins I tried removing them - the problem didn't go away
• then I generated many submodules with many unit tests thinking perhaps compilation of these somehow overlaps and leads to the problem but also nothing
• I was removing the tests by kind of bisection but seems there is not single problematic test but rather just their number (but it fails with approx. 10% of the overall test suite)

What is being done during :compileTestGroovy is this a grails or gradle plugin?

Is there any additional logging level I could enable or possibly even locally host the plugin responsible for test compilation and debuggin it?

[matrei]

What is being done during :compileTestGroovy is this a grails or gradle plugin?

I believe this task is added by the Groovy Gradle Plugin: https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/groovy_plugin.html#sec:groovy_tasks

It's really hard to help with this one without a shared project that reproduces the problem.