Troubleshooting Jenkins builds

The Jenkins dashboard that displays after navigating to the Jenkins URL indicates the outcome of the most recent build of each defined job. The dashboard's S column displays one of the following icons to indicate the most recent build's status:

Icon Description

The Jenkins build succeeded without any errors.

The Jenkins build experienced warnings or errors that resulted in the build being flagged as unstable (for example, an output target contained broken links or was missing project files).

The Jenkins build failed (typically, this means that an output target failed to generate).

After clicking a job name, the same icons described above appear in the Build History list, which shows the outcome of all recent runs of that job.

When a build fails or is marked unstable, the easiest way to determine the reason for the outcome is to view the build's log file.

Note   Later, after adding validation to your builds, we'll discuss how you can troubleshoot and fix build warnings and errors without needing to access Jenkins.

To display a build's log file

  1. On the Jenkins dashboard, click the job whose build you want to troubleshoot.
  2. In the Build History, click the execution number of the build you want to troubleshoot.
  3. In the sidebar menu, click Console Output.

Jenkins displays the build's log file, including all messages logged by both Jenkins (during build execution) and your authoring tool (during target generation). Review the log file to find warning or error messages that account for the build's status:

  • If the errors occur during Jenkins operations (such as when obtaining the most recent repository updates), then double-check the job's configuration to ensure that Jenkins can successfully access the repository.
  • If the errors occur during output target generation, then resolve the issues in your authoring tool. You can then stage, commit, and push your changes and then start another build to determine whether you've successfully resolved all issues.

Now that you understand how to troubleshoot Jenkins builds, you're ready to download and customize the validation script files.