Issue

• After upgrading the Durable Task plugin to version 1.37 or later and Pipeline: Nodes and Processes plugin to version 2.40 or later, builds which are executing bat steps are failing when the executed script ends up with some error code.

Environment

• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core)
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on modern cloud platforms - Managed controller
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on modern cloud platforms - Operations Center
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on traditional platforms - Client controller
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on traditional platforms - Operations Center
• CloudBees Jenkins Platform - Client controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Platform - Operations Center
• CloudBees Jenkins Distribution
• Jenkins LTS
• Durable Task Plugin 1.37 or later
• Pipeline: Nodes and Processes 2.40 or later

Explanation

Script failures were not handled before Durable Task plugin version 1.37 and Pipeline: Nodes and Processes plugin version 2.40.

When using returnStatus: true, callers are expected to handle any non zero return code themselves, so the pipeline is not failing at this point.

pipeline {
    agent { label 'windows'}

    stages {
        stage('Bat stage') {
            steps {
                script {
                    BATCH_COMMAND="""@echo off
                    fail
                    Echo ERRORLEVEL = %errorlevel%
                    """
                    batExit = bat returnStatus: true,
                    label: 'Test Exit Code',
                    script: """
                    ${BATCH_COMMAND}
                    """
                    echo "batExit = " + batExit
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

When using returnStatus: false (false is the default value when returnStatus is not used) the error is not handled by the caller so it is propagated up making the build fail.

pipeline {
    agent { label 'windows'}

    stages {
        stage('Bat stage') {
            steps {
                script {
                    BATCH_COMMAND="""@echo off
                    fail
                    Echo ERRORLEVEL = %errorlevel%
                    """
                    batExit = bat returnStatus: false,
                    label: 'Test Exit Code',
                    script: """
                    ${BATCH_COMMAND}
                    """
                    echo "batExit = " + batExit
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Resolution

When using returnStatus: false (false is the default value when returnStatus is not used) the error should be manually handled. For example it could be handled using [try/catch] blocks (https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/syntax/#flow-control) as follows:

pipeline {
    agent { label 'windows'}

    stages {
        stage('Bat stage') {
            steps {
                script {
                    BATCH_COMMAND="""@echo off
                    fail
                    Echo ERRORLEVEL = %errorlevel%
                    """
                    try {
                        batExit = bat returnStatus: false,
                        label: 'Test Exit Code',
                        script: """
                        ${BATCH_COMMAND}
                        """
                    } catch (Exception e){
                        // sample code
                        echo e.toString()
                        // other code used to correctly handle the execption
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Reference

• Pipeline: Nodes and Processes
• Pipeline Syntax - Flow Control