The tests on central: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=mozilla-central&revision=bd79b07f57a34e0d8fe01bdc3f34815d77c01444&filter-resultStatus=testfailed&filter-resultStatus=busted&filter-resultStatus=exception&filter-resultStatus=success&filter-resultStatus=pending&filter-resultStatus=running&filter-searchStr=idx&selectedJob=191559102 Failure log: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/logviewer.html#?job_id=191559099&repo=mozilla-central&lineNumber=1048 [task 2018-08-02T10:35:26.920Z] 10:35:26 INFO - ERROR: Cannot find nodejs [task 2018-08-02T10:35:26.947Z] 10:35:26 INFO - *** Fix above errors and then restart with\ [task 2018-08-02T10:35:26.947Z] 10:35:26 INFO - "/usr/bin/make -f client.mk build" [task 2018-08-02T10:35:26.948Z] 10:35:26 INFO - client.mk:123: recipe for target 'configure' failed [task 2018-08-02T10:35:26.948Z] 10:35:26 INFO - make: *** [configure] Error 1 [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.022Z] 10:35:27 ERROR - Return code: 2 [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 WARNING - setting return code to 2 [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 FATAL - 'mach build -v' did not run successfully. Please check log for errors. [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 FATAL - Running post_fatal callback... [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 FATAL - Exiting -1 [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 INFO - [mozharness: 2018-08-02 10:35:27.023792Z] Finished build step (failed) [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.023Z] 10:35:27 INFO - Running post-run listener: _summarize [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.024Z] 10:35:27 ERROR - # TBPL FAILURE # [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.024Z] 10:35:27 INFO - [mozharness: 2018-08-02 10:35:27.024239Z] FxDesktopBuild summary: [task 2018-08-02T10:35:27.024Z] 10:35:27 ERROR - # TBPL FAILURE # This looks like smthg caused by https://hg.mozilla.org./mozilla-central/diff/51795a3214ea/browser/config/mozconfigs/linux32/l10n-mozconfig

Should be a straightforward fix; I'll have a patch in a bit.

Patch up for review, here's a try push: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=479d630dd639d332ed883d48f21b368458ad762e

Note that the reason I added node to the build toolchain here rather than disabling node in mozconfig is because I'm assuming that searchfox is likely to want access to NodeJS JavaScript parsing stuff (eg JSX parsers, so that it can parse non-transpiled code correctly).

gps, while these patches seem extremely likely to fix the problem, one thing that's not clear to me is why these jobs are failing at all, since node.configure still has allow_missing=True. Any ideas?

Oh, perhaps it's that when NODEJS is set in the environment, that effective overrides allow_missing to be False.

Comment on attachment 8997035 [details] Bug 1480392 - fix searchfox build failures caused by missing node toolchain, https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/260992/#review268068 Yes, the presence of the environment variable always results in that value being used. It is up to downstream checks to verify the thing defined in the environment variable is actually used. Our policy (for better or worse) is to never ignore environment variables.

Pushed by gszorc@mozilla.com: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/525db752c9be fix searchfox build failures caused by missing node toolchain, r=gps