[29.x] guix build failure on ppc with xcb #33488

Doing a guix build on the 29.x branch (both with v29.1, v29.2rc1 and f6d49d0a0995ad736c3462bb5cd9d2177d77c970) fails for me on powerpc (and powerpcle) seemingly related to xcb. Previous failures have just given me an error abort after some xcb install commands without indicating what failed, the latest failure gave this error:

checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating xkbcommon.pc
config.status: creating xkbcommon-x11.pc
config.status: creating doc/Doxyfile
config.status: creating src/config.h
config.status: src/config.h is unchanged
config.status: executing depfiles commands
config.status: executing libtool commands

        libxkbcommon 0.8.4

        libxkbcommon:            yes
        libxkbcommon-x11:        yes
        Wayland utilities:       no
        documentation:           no

        default XKB rules:       evdev
        default XKB model:       pc105
        default XKB layout:      us
        default XKB variant:
        default XKB options:

        prefix:                  /bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu
        includedir:              ${prefix}/include
        lib dir:                 ${exec_prefix}/lib
        datarootdir:             ${prefix}/share
        XKB config root:         ${datarootdir}/X11/xkb
        X11 locale root:         ${datarootdir}/X11/locale

Building libxkbcommon...
make[1]: Entering directory '/bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxkbcommon/0.8.4-527b23ff69b'
make  all-am
make[2]: Entering directory '/bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxkbcommon/0.8.4-527b23ff69b'
  CCLD     libxkbcommon-x11.la
powerpc64-linux-gnu-ld: warning: /bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib/libxcb-xkb.so has a corrupt string table index - ignoring
powerpc64-linux-gnu-ld: error: /bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib/libxcb-xkb.so: ELF section name out of range
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1302: libxkbcommon-x11.la] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxkbcommon/0.8.4-527b23ff69b'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1080: all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxkbcommon/0.8.4-527b23ff69b'
make: *** [funcs.mk:303: /bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxkbcommon/0.8.4-527b23ff69b/./.stamp_built] Error 2
make: Leaving directory '/bitcoin/depends'

Previous failures have just given me an error abort after some xcb install commands without indicating what failed, the latest failure gave this error:

So the failure is non-deterministic? Does it happen with a fully clean git repo?

Previous failures have just given me an error abort after some xcb install commands without indicating what failed, the latest failure gave this error:

So the failure is non-deterministic? Does it happen with a fully clean git repo?

It's part of the "depends" setup, which caches the downloaded source and build between runs afaics? I think that's the source of the differences in error. I tried it from a cleaned out checkout before, but will try again to see the exact error.

Ah, there we go; these look like relevant lines:

$ HOSTS=powerpc64-linux-gnu contrib/guix/guix-build
...
xcb_auth.c:74:37: warning: initialization discards 'const' qualifier from pointer target type [-Wdiscarded-qualifiers]
   74 | #define AUTH_PROTO_MIT_MAGIC_COOKIE "MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1"
      |                                     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
xcb_auth.c:80:5: note: in expansion of macro 'AUTH_PROTO_MIT_MAGIC_COOKIE'
   80 |     AUTH_PROTO_MIT_MAGIC_COOKIE,
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...
libtool: warning: relinking 'libxcb-randr.la'
libtool: install: (cd /bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxcb/1.14-3622160b92f/src; /bin/sh "/bitcoin/depends/work/build/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxcb/1.14-3622160b92f/libtool"  --silent --tag CC --mode=relink powerpc64-linux-gnu-gcc -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wmissing-declarations -Wformat=2 -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs -Wbad-function-cast -Wold-style-definition -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wunused -Wuninitialized -Wshadow -Wmissing-noreturn -Wmissing-format-attribute -Wredundant-decls -Wlogical-op -Werror=implicit -Werror=nonnull -Werror=init-self -Werror=main -Werror=missing-braces -Werror=sequence-point -Werror=return-type -Werror=trigraphs -Werror=array-bounds -Werror=write-strings -Werror=address -Werror=int-to-pointer-cast -Werror=pointer-to-int-cast -I//bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/include -pipe -std=c11 -O2 -version-info 1:0:1 -no-undefined -L/bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib -o libxcb-randr.la -rpath /bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib randr.lo libxcb.la -inst-prefix-dir /bitcoin/depends/work/staging/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxcb/1.14-3622160b92f)
...
powerpc64-linux-gnu-ld: warning: /bitcoin/depends/work/staging/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxcb/1.14-3622160b92f/bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib/libxcb.so has a corrupt string table index - ignoring
powerpc64-linux-gnu-ld: error: /bitcoin/depends/work/staging/powerpc64-linux-gnu/libxcb/1.14-3622160b92f/bitcoin/depends/powerpc64-linux-gnu/lib/libxcb.so: ELF section name out of range
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
libtool:   error: error: relink 'libxcb-randr.la' with the above command before installing it
make[4]: *** [Makefile:851: install-libLTLIBRARIES] Error 1
make[4]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....

The "install" stuff I was seeing was the unfinished jobs, I guess, and I just didn't look carefully enough to find meatier errors.

Using guix 1.4.0-9 from debian unstable, on commit f6d49d0a0995ad736c3462bb5cd9d2177d77c970.

I suspect might be the same fundamental issue we saw here: #33494 (comment)

Where a cached package is found in depends (and used) despite the package definition having changed. @ajtowns do you have set/are you using $BASE_CACHE ?

No? I just untarred the Xcode SDK in a clean environment, set HOSTS and ran guix-build. The depends/sources files all seem to match the hashes from depends/packages as far as I can see for what that's worth.

Ah I see.

FWIW I am using the same guix version via nix but can't reproduce :(

[100%] Built target check-symbols
-- Install configuration: "RelWithDebInfo"
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoin-wallet
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoin-wallet.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoind
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoind.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoin-cli
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoin-cli.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoin-tx
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoin-tx.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoin-util
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoin-util.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/bitcoin-qt
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/share/man/man1/bitcoin-qt.1
-- Installing: /distsrc-base/distsrc-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu/installed/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995/bin/test_bitcoin

Running guix-build from a mostly clean build directly three times gives me these logs, if that helps:

https://gist.github.com/ajtowns/e670603ba85bb7720cea8fc5e1215172

Maybe my guix profile is corrupted or otherwise wrong somehow?

I'd try to setup a fresh guix (maybe in a container) and build from there to check if something is wrong with your CPU/memory or the guix install.

It should be roughly:

docker run --privileged -it --rm ubuntu:24.04

(inside the container, assuming the guix apt package still exists:)

export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive && apt update && apt install git vim htop guix bash curl make -y && git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git --depth=1 /bitcoin-core && cd /bitcoin-core && groupadd --system guixbuild && for i in `seq -w 1 10`; do useradd -g guixbuild -G guixbuild -d /var/empty -s `which nologin` -c "Guix build user $i" --system guixbuilder$i; done
LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild &

HOSTS=powerpc64-linux-gnu V=1 VERBOSE=1 ./contrib/guix/guix-build

It works for me, but I am using different hardware, and I've updated the guix to a more recent one:

# uname --machine && find guix-build-$(git rev-parse --short=12 HEAD)/output/ -type f -print0 | env LC_ALL=C sort -z | xargs -r0 sha256sum
riscv64
46c169fb02a62391e8d31df45269152bb60185081333b9b345f02fe212d1673b  guix-build-f6d49d0a0995/output/dist-archive/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995.tar.gz
2355930789826759937046198efe16a5d01bb1d5e9f731bd46d4f7631e07685f  guix-build-f6d49d0a0995/output/powerpc64-linux-gnu/SHA256SUMS.part
5a64896ef92dbeb29f37dcb4e5b3eb64e1c06d5fd64c8853b5ed8d3b6b8b0b13  guix-build-f6d49d0a0995/output/powerpc64-linux-gnu/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu-debug.tar.gz
bf262448b9144561bd3adc14a855147154197e4ed4bb9eddfb229add5fb57740  guix-build-f6d49d0a0995/output/powerpc64-linux-gnu/bitcoin-f6d49d0a0995-powerpc64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

# guix describe
Generation 1    Sep 01 2025 17:43:44    (current)
  guix 5cb84f2
    repository URL: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix.git
    commit: 5cb84f2013c5b1e48a7d0e617032266f1e6059e2