Python Testing and Continuous Integration: Discussion

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn’t Travis-CI run my tests?

A common problem in the Continuous Integration part of this lesson is that Travis-CI does not run the tests in the version-controlled repository. One thing to watch out for is that Travis-CI is very picky about the format of the .travis.yaml file, but other problems are also possible. Some of these, and how they can be fixed, are outlined below.

• The .travis.yml file is malformed. This results in an error message ERROR: An error occured while trying to parse your .travis.yml file and the test is recorded as “canceled”. Try using https://lint.travis-ci.org/. This should point to the line of the error and give a more useful error message. Try to fix the error, commit and push the fixed .travis.yml file, and push to GitHub to rerun the tests.

• The tests fail with the message The command "rake" exited with 1. at the end of the log file. This indicates that Travis attempted to run the tests for software written in Ruby. This is the default for Travis and probably means that the .travis.yaml file has not been found. One reason for this may be that the first dot has been missed. Check with ls -a and if this is the case use the git mv command to rename the file, then git commit and git push. This should trigger the tests to run again.

• The tests don’t run at all. One reason for this is that Travis has not “seen” changes pushed to GitHub, for example if the configuration files are pushed before Travis is linked to the GitHub account. Try to fix this by making a minor change to a file, then committing and pushing the change.

Why does the build end with a error mentioning rake?

The build ends with The command "rake" exited with 1.. A malformed .travis.yml has been seen as the cause of this. Even a missing space between the - and the following " can result in a problem with this file.