Jenkis downstream job fails to find upstream artifacts

Question

The setup is used to build and deploy to Adobe AEM.

Master Build job pulls from git repository, builds and packages, run the tests and then fires downstream jobs that sh

Answer 1

The fix may be this simple: disable or remove Compress Artifacts plugin and reboot Jenkins.

This workaround was deduced from a long-standing bug report: "Copy Artifacts Plugin" should support ArtifactManager.

Answer 2

TL;DR

You are trying to use artifacts without archiving them first.
You are trying to use absolute paths, but they should be relative to $WORKSPACE and/or "archive location".

Full Answer

You are misunderstanding the concept of "Artifacts" as it relates to Jenkins.

What are Jenkins Artifacts

Artifacts are files that are specifically preserved after the build with the help of Archive the Artifacts post-build action.

When the build runs, it runs within:
$WORKSPACE, which on filesystem usually resides within
$JENKINS_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/workspace
Inside there, you can have your SCM checkout folders, temporary build files, final built files, binaries, etc.

The contents of $WORKSPACE is volatile, you should never rely on it, outside of the build timeframe (and downstream jobs are outside of the build timeframe). The contents of $WORKSPACE could be different between different master/slave nodes, it could be deleted at any time by admin, or by SCM update/cleanup/checkout.

It's also important to understand that there is only one $WORKSPACE for the whole Job.

But now pay attention to your Build History, there are several entries in that list, referenced by build number (#) and date timestamp. These are stored under:
$JENKINS_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/builds/$BUILD_ID
with $BUILD_ID being the date-timestamp of the build, like 2014-10-22_11-33-46

The $WORKSPACE contains the information relevant to current or last (and the problem is: you can never be sure if it's "current" or "last") build;
The builds folder contains a record of all past (retained) build executions (this is what makes up the Build History list on your left), per build.

By default, it contains only what Jenkins itself needs: build.xml copy, changelog information, console log. When you go to URL http://$JENKINS_URL/job/$JOB_NAME/[nn]/ where [nn] is a numeric job build/run number (#), it's reading this information from the builds folder on the filesystem.

To preserve artifacts of a build (to avoid them being overwritten by the next build, wiped out worskpace, or just to access older builds), you need to Archive the Artifacts (with same post-build action with the same title). When you archive the artifacts, you indicate which files within $WORKSPACE you want to preserve. When Jenkins does the archiving, it will place those files (keeping paths [relative to $WORKSPACE] preserved) into:
$JENKINS_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/builds/$BUILD_ID/archive/.
This way, you can have multiple sets of artifacts preserved for previous builds, not just "latest/last" from $WORKSPACE.

For the sake of completeness, I will mention that Jenkins's "permalinks", such as http://$JENKINS_URL/job/$JOB_NAME/lastSuccessfulBuild and /lastFailedBuild, etc are in fact symlinks on the filesystem to one of the preserved builds/$BUILD_ID folders.

Lastly, you control how many build runs and how many artifacts are retained (can be configured separately) through "Discard old builds" checkmark on job configuration. By default, all are retained, but if you start retaining artifacts, you need to think of hard-disk space capacity.

Solutions to your problem

So with the information above, and looking at your error messages, you should now see that the Copy Artifacts plugin is correctly looking for artifacts under the /archive/ section of a build.

You should also notice that Copy Artifacts plugin does not let you pick "current build" when selecting which build to copy from. It has permalinks (like "last successful" or "last build"), and specific build numbers, all of which translate to preserved builds under $JENKINS_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/builds/$BUILD_ID/archive/

Even "Upstream Build that triggered this job" will link to a specific $BUILD_ID.

In either of below options

Configuration for Archiving Artifacts is relative to $WORKSPACE.
Configuration for Copy Artifacts is relative to "archive location", that is $JENKINS_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/builds/$BUILD_ID/archive/.
Since "Copy Artifacts" is relative to "archive location", and "archive location" is relative to $WORKSPACE, then for all intensive purposes, the relative paths of both configurations can be same and relative to $WORKSPACE

Option 1

• First Archive the Artifacts with the post-build action, otherwise you have nothing to copy from.
  1. If you have your files in the root of $WORKSPACE, it should be:
     PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.jar,PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.zip
     (Note, not full paths in here)
• Then use Upstream Build that triggered this job for Copy Artifacts selection.
  1. For Artifacts to copy field use either:
     
     • ** or blank to copy all archived artifacts, or
     • PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.jar,PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.zip (same as the archiving section)

Option 2

If you don't want to archive, you can use $WORKSPACE directly, with Copy from workspace of latest completed build, however you must ensure that no second upstream build can run while downstream build is executing, else you risk getting a partial file from a partial build, because as previously explained, $WORKSPACE is volatile.

• Again, for the Copy Artifacts step, under Artifacts to copy field, use path relative to $WORKSPACE, that is:
  PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.jar,PROJECTNAME-*/**/*.zip

Option 3

If you really want to copy the whole WORKSPACE between different jobs, use either

• Clone Workspace SCM plugin or
• Shared Workspace plugin

Answer 3

The solution is about the configuration of the builder.

The root cause sits on the configuration of the downstream job. Once "Copy from workspace of latest completed build" is chosen for the build to be copied, and the path of artifacts to copy is set to relative path, such as projectname-//.jar,projectname-//.zip then the build succeeds.

Furthemore, in the parent job configuration, downstream job needs to be allowed to CopyArtifact and Projects to allow copy artifacts field should specify the downstream job.

Edit: Now I see that you responded in the meantime. Great answer and basically clears up some of the questions I had.

The one unclear thing about option 1 is that archiving of the files happens after the parent job completes.

Waiting for the completion of projectname-Deploy
projectname-Deploy #19 completed. Result was SUCCESS
Waiting for the completion of projectname-Deploy
projectname-Deploy #20 completed. Result was SUCCESS
Build step 'Trigger/call builds on other projects' changed build result to SUCCESS
Strings match run condition: string 1=[lab2b], string 2=[both]
Run condition [Strings match] preventing perform for step [BuilderChain]
Archiving artifacts 

Once I changed the approach to option two it worked for me, but I would like to understand first option as well.