Error reading nxdeps.json

Current Behavior

While running some commands in parallel we receive the following error:

Error reading '/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/.cache/nx/nxdeps.json'. Continue the process without the cache.
Error: ValueExpected in /home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/.cache/nx/nxdeps.json at position 0
    at parseJson (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/tao/src/utils/json.js:30:15)
    at readJsonFile (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/tao/src/utils/fileutils.js:21:37)
    at readCache (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/workspace/src/core/nx-deps/nx-deps-cache.js:41:46)
    at Object.readCachedProjectGraph (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/workspace/src/core/project-graph/project-graph.js:19:61)
    at jestExecutor2 (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@*******org/nx-jest/src/executors/jest/jest.impl.js:107:46)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)
[readCachedProjectGraph] ERROR: No cached ProjectGraph is available.

If you are leveraging \`readCachedProjectGraph()\` directly then you will need to refactor your usage to first ensure that
the ProjectGraph is created by calling \`await createProjectGraphAsync()\` somewhere before attempting to read the data.

(Note: we are using a jest executor that wraps the Nrwl Nx Jest executor to modify the jest config, doesn’t do anything with Nx itself, can find the code here, https://github.com/trellisorg/platform/tree/master/packages/nx-jest, it shouldn’t have anything to do with it.)

We have 3 e2e test suites (that actually just use jest) for our API, each of them has a dependsOn target:

"dependsOn": [
  { "target": "build", "projects": "dependencies" }
]

So that all dependencies of these e2e test suites (which are just node projects in the apps folder) are built (or pulled from cache) prior to running the e2e tests.

Then we run

yarn nx affected --target feature-e2e

and receive the error (not every time though)

Expected Behavior

Should not error and running commands in parallel should work fine.

Steps to Reproduce

This issue may not be prioritized if details are not provided to help us reproduce the issue.

Failure Logs

Error reading '/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/.cache/nx/nxdeps.json'. Continue the process without the cache.
Error: ValueExpected in /home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/.cache/nx/nxdeps.json at position 0
    at parseJson (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/tao/src/utils/json.js:30:15)
    at readJsonFile (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/tao/src/utils/fileutils.js:21:37)
    at readCache (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/workspace/src/core/nx-deps/nx-deps-cache.js:41:46)
    at Object.readCachedProjectGraph (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@nrwl/workspace/src/core/project-graph/project-graph.js:19:61)
    at jestExecutor2 (/home/circleci/project/repo/node_modules/@*******org/nx-jest/src/executors/jest/jest.impl.js:107:46)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)
[readCachedProjectGraph] ERROR: No cached ProjectGraph is available.

If you are leveraging \`readCachedProjectGraph()\` directly then you will need to refactor your usage to first ensure that
the ProjectGraph is created by calling \`await createProjectGraphAsync()\` somewhere before attempting to read the data

Environment

 >  NX   Report complete - copy this into the issue template

   Node : 12.22.7
   OS   : darwin x64
   yarn : 1.22.17
   
   nx : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/angular : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/cli : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/cypress : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/detox : undefined
   @nrwl/devkit : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/eslint-plugin-nx : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/express : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/jest : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/js : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/linter : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/nest : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/next : undefined
   @nrwl/node : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/nx-cloud : 13.1.5
   @nrwl/react : undefined
   @nrwl/react-native : undefined
   @nrwl/schematics : undefined
   @nrwl/storybook : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/tao : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/web : 13.8.3
   @nrwl/workspace : 13.8.3
   typescript : 4.5.5
   rxjs : 7.4.0

[wSedlacek]

I noticed that the writeCache() is getting called over and over again just writing the same data that is already there every time the graph is read. Adding a simple check to see if the data it is writing is already what is there should reduce the chances that it is in the middle of writing when reading starts.

[sorin-davidoi]

Can someone on the NX team weigh in on this (e.g. what solution would you merge if someone worked on it)?