Ah interesting:

I ran this about 25 times on my fork, they passed every time.

First time with this PR it failed :)

Running Debug|Win32 interpreter...
ERROR: collect_windows() failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "D:\a\cpython\cpython\Lib\test\pythoninfo.py", line 1025, in collect_info
    collect_func(info_add)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^
  File "D:\a\cpython\cpython\Lib\test\pythoninfo.py", line 929, in collect_windows
    raise ValueError(
    ...<2 lines>...
    )
ValueError: Command 'ver' failed with exit code 3221225794: stdout='' stderr=''

https://github.com/python/cpython/actions/runs/7298627675/job/19889972821?pr=113392#step:4:17

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-fabric/service-fabric-diagnostics-code-package-errors says:

Looks like it's actually a problem with PATH then. I don't have a problem with leaving that env code in there, though it's probably worth a comment.

Would you like to suggest a comment?

Avoid interference from CI systems with messy environments (gh-113392)?

Looks like it's gotten stuck this time, which is very interesting. Perhaps the previous run was on the successful side of the 50/50?

I ran about 20 times on my fork, but it passed each time.

I'll restart it. But getting stuck is worse than stopping with an error...

I won't restart it as it's already been restarted twice.

• 1st run: stalled and was cancelled https://github.com/python/cpython/actions/runs/7299741157/attempts/1?pr=113392

• 2nd run: pass https://github.com/python/cpython/actions/runs/7299741157/attempts/2?pr=113392

• 3rd run: same 3221225794 error https://github.com/python/cpython/actions/runs/7299741157?pr=113392

ERROR: collect_windows() failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "D:\a\cpython\cpython\Lib\test\pythoninfo.py", line 1027, in collect_info
    collect_func(info_add)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^
  File "D:\a\cpython\cpython\Lib\test\pythoninfo.py", line 931, in collect_windows
    raise ValueError(
    ...<2 lines>...
    )
ValueError: Command 'ver' failed with exit code 3221225794: stdout='' stderr=''

Okay, guess we can assume that PATH isn't the culprit (and revert that change).

I've been able to find some (private) discussion about a possible issue that looks like this. It suggests that STARTUPINFOW.lpDesktop needs to be initialised to Winsta0\Default rather than being left empty for cases where the process is being launched into a new window (which shell=True should do) from a service account (which we shouldn't be, but maybe we are?).

Currently it's _winapi_CreateProcess_impl in Modules\_winapi.c that needs to set that value (in si.StartupInfo). It's probably not a real behaviour change to set it unconditionally, but ideally we'd support it on the startup info object. Might be worth making the change just for testing. It might also be possible to repro locally using psexec to run python Lib\test\pythoninfo.py as NETWORK SERVICE.

A simpler fix might be to pass CREATE_NO_WINDOW in the creation flags, which ought to bypass the entire code path that leads to the issue above. But I see no suggestion of that being a fix/workaround (because in the general case where you need a window, it's not).

I compared successful and failing logs, and they are identical to this point, ignoring time, commit hash, git pull progress indicator and the order of compiling files.

Is there an open issue? I'm trying to ignore this error, if it can help, because it blocks our work. See #113435.

I don't think there's an issue.

Your PR looks good to unblock, perhaps combine with this to log the error rather than raising an exception?

@hugovk Then could you please open an issue and copy your description to it? We will link both PRs to this issue, unblock the workflow, and then continue investigation of the problem.

Certainly, I've opened issue #113440.

Do we still need this or can we close it (and #113440)?

Do you still need this?

The ver error no longer blocks CI, but the cause of the failure is still unclear. It would be nice to find and fix the cause, but for now we can just ignore it.