Windows: failed to delete output files before executing action (.dll)

Description of the problem / feature request:

When compiling on Windows, sometimes .dll cannot be deleted. The typical error message is: " xx.dll: failed to delete output files before executing action"

I am using remote_cache with remote_download_minimal, and it seems those items that actually are left in the local cache, sometimes cannot be deleted.

Manually you can delete the .dlls just fine, so a workaround for now is to search the local cache for .dlls and delete them before server side compilation.

I have previously seen problems when defender or anti-virus is temporarily locking files. However this failure is permanent: Bazel cannot delete the files, the user can.

Feature requests: what underlying problem are you trying to solve with this feature?

1. Get a better error message when this error occurs (permission, read error etc).
2. Create a more stable way to delete files on windows (retry?, unlocking?)

Bugs: what’s the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

It is sporadic, but probably connected to remote_cache

What operating system are you running Bazel on?

Windows 10

What’s the output of bazel info release?

1.2.0

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

Nothing

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

No.

[hfeky]

Is there any update on this issue? I’m still facing the same issue on Bazel 4.1.0 on Windows 10.

[fmeum]

I just encountered this bug on a Windows machine in GitHub Actions while building a jar file that does not contain any native code.