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[CI] Pin GitHub Actions to ubuntu-24.04 ahead of the ubuntu-latest migration to 26.04 #13567

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[CI] Pin GitHub Actions to ubuntu-24.04 ahead of the ubuntu-latest migration to 26.04#13567
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kaitlinnewson
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Housekeeping:2:UrgentAny dependency management or refactor that must be done soon to fix or avoid a significant problem.

Description

@kaitlinnewson
kaitlinnewson
opened on Oct 20, 2026

Describe the issue

GitHub started moving the ubuntu-latest runner label to Ubuntu 26.04 on October 19, 2026 (actions/runner-images#14748 (actions/runner-images#14748)). The rollout is gradual, so CI jobs will start failing at random as more of them land on 26.04 runners.

I ran the OJS main CI matrix on ubuntu-26.04 with pkp/pkp-github-actions@v1. Every job failed during setup, before any tests ran:

  • tj-actions/install-postgresql@v3 fails on every job, regardless of database: sudo: 'apt-key': command not found. Ubuntu 26.04 no longer ships apt-key.

When I ran the same matrix with that step fixed (pkp/pkp-github-actions#103), these failures came next:

  • MySQL jobs: Package 'mysql-server-8.0' has no installation candidate. 26.04 doesn't have the 8.0 packages.
  • MariaDB jobs: ankane/setup-mariadb@v1 fails because MariaDB has no 10.11 repo for 26.04 (dlm.mariadb.com/.../10.11/repo/ubuntu resolute Release does not have a Release file).
  • All test jobs: Sendria crashes on startup because 26.04's system bcrypt 5 is incompatible with passlib (ValueError: password cannot be longer than 72 bytes). Email-dependent Cypress tests then fail with ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:1080.
  • PostgreSQL: works on 26.04 (PG 18 is preinstalled) with the changes in make postgres installation more robust pkp-github-actions#103.
  • PHP 7.3/7.4/8.0 (stable-3_3_0, scheduled runs): not tested yet.

Proposed solution

  1. As an immediate fix, change runs-on: ubuntu-latest to runs-on: ubuntu-24.04 in the OJS, OMP and OPS CI workflows (main, stable-3_5_0, stable-3_4_0 and stable-3_3_0, including schedule.yml and test-vps-dataset.yaml on main).
  2. In a follow-up, make pkp-github-actions work on 26.04: MySQL 8.4, MariaDB setup, Sendria/bcrypt, old PHP versions. Then remove the pin or update it to 26.04. Plugin repos that use pkp-github-actions will need the same pin, or that follow-up fix.

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Activity

  1. kaitlinnewson
    added
    Housekeeping:2:UrgentAny dependency management or refactor that must be done soon to fix or avoid a significant problem.
    on Oct 20, 2026
  2. kaitlinnewson
    added 3 commits that reference this issue on Nov 6, 2026

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    72b8ccd

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    7c15f89

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    89f4984
  3. kaitlinnewson
    self-assigned this
    on Nov 6, 2026
  4. kaitlinnewson
    added 10 commits that reference this issue on Nov 6, 2026

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    349f00e

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    73dc5a3

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    fbca04d

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    99b4411

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    b471cd7

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    72a1df8

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    c4b5c01

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    7497b7b

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04

    16902c8

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 (#6035)

    97841df

  5. 63 remaining items

  6. kaitlinnewson
    added 15 commits that reference this issue on Nov 9, 2026

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Load the test dataset in CI

    280ef9f

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 (#10)

    8b8f450

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 (#9)

    4f6d1d4

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Use the test dataset instead of building data in tests

    6b111d1

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Use the test dataset instead of building data in tests

    9114d60

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Edit the dataset's unpublished version in the versi…

    1be7c2c

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Use the test dataset instead of building data in tests

    7dc1fae

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Use the test dataset instead of building data in tests

    3294e4b

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Use the test dataset instead of building data in tests

    d335f9d

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#288)

    768e320

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#141)

    afcbba6

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#143)

    0392a1b

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#287)

    8b47b7e

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#140)

    0767346

    pkp/pkp-lib#13567 Pin CI runners to ubuntu-24.04 and fix tests (#144)

    68d0205
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