Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value

[jbartus]

sometimes when running this tf code

resource "sigsci_site" "demo_site" {
  display_name = "demosite"
  short_name   = "demosite"
  agent_level  = "block"
}

resource "sigsci_edge_deployment" "ngwaf_edge_demo" {
  site_short_name = sigsci_site.demo_site.short_name
}

I get the following error:

│ Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value
│ 
│   with sigsci_edge_deployment.ngwaf_edge_demo,
│   on ngwaf.tf line 12, in resource "sigsci_edge_deployment" "ngwaf_edge_demo":
│   12: resource "sigsci_edge_deployment" "ngwaf_edge_demo" {
│ 
╵

here's my terraform and provider versions

jbartus@XFHFH62963 fsly-demo % tf version
Terraform v1.6.2
on darwin_arm64
+ provider registry.terraform.io/fastly/fastly v5.6.0
+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/google v5.3.0
+ provider registry.terraform.io/signalsciences/sigsci v2.1.3

if I simply wait a minute or two the problem goes away, I can re-run terraform apply and it will complete the setup.

the problem reproduces even with -parallelism=1

[rickardkarlsson]

I also experience the same problem.
It's quite frustrating to create new sites. When it mostly don't work.
Is there any solution to fix this?

[DanInProgress]

Also just got bit by this and a script was in use that ensures that TF_CLI_ARGS_apply=" -parallelism=1" is always set.

For others running into this issue:

if terraform plan is now showing:

-/+ destroy and then create replacement

Terraform will perform the following actions:

  # module.public_website.sigsci_edge_deployment.ngwaf_edge_site_service is tainted, so must be replaced
-/+ resource "sigsci_edge_deployment" "ngwaf_edge_site_service" {
      ~ id              = "<site-short-name>" -> (known after apply)
        # (1 unchanged attribute hidden)
    }

double check the signal sciences dashboard

if it already exists, skip this issue the second time around by using terraform import like this:

SITE_SHORT_NAME="<site-short-name>" # e.g. `public-website`
TF_RESOURCE_ADDR="<address>" # e.g. `module.public_website.sigsci_edge_deployment.ngwaf_edge_site_service`
terraform state rm -backup <please-make-a-backup.tfstate> "$TF_RESOURCE_ADDR"
terraform import "$TF_RESOURCE_ADDR" "$SITE_SHORT_NAME"

looks like terraform import isn't documented for sigsci_edge_deployment, so I opened #203 to review all docs for similar issues

[jbartus]

done like 15 - 20 builds the last two days and haven't seen the error again

[lra]

We are getting this error randomly using Terraform v1.7.5 on darwin_arm64 and signalsciences/sigsci v2.1.7.
Mayb the API is randomly failing? It could be returning something that's not a json when erroring out, leading to this message. e.g. https://austindewey.com/2020/12/11/troubleshooting-invalid-character-looking-for-beginning-of-value/