[JENKINS-69015] Ancestry Maximum Age strategy causing "Couldn't find any revision to build"

I have several jobs that specify Strategy for choosing what to build / Ancestry / Maximum Age of Commit. This is to prevent old heads unnecessarily building or dangerously deploying.

Since a recent upgrade to Jenkins and/or the git plugin, jobs that have this config are refusing to rebuild any commit that has already built, irrespective of the age of commit.

For example, a job that run on a daily basis (it is date-dependent and should start failing when some data is out-of-date), will build a given commit once, but will start failing on subsequent days with a log similar to below:

 

Building in workspace /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/XXX

The recommended git tool is: NONE

using credential XXX

 > git rev-parse --resolve-git-dir /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/XXX/.git # timeout=10

Fetching changes from the remote Git repository

 > git config remote.origin.url XXX.git # timeout=10

Fetching upstream changes from XXX.git

 > git --version # timeout=10

 > git --version # 'git version 2.37.0'

using GIT_SSH to set credentials 

 > git fetch --tags --force --progress -- XXX.git +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* # timeout=10

Seen branch in repository origin/HEAD

Seen branch in repository origin/master

Seen branch in repository origin/v10

Seen 3 remote branches

 > git show-ref --tags -d # timeout=10

ERROR: Couldn't find any revision to build. Verify the repository and branch configuration for this job.

Finished: FAILURE 

 

Branch specifier in this example is set to **

Another case uses refs/tags/release.*

What I've tried:

• Recreating the job — same outcome


• Removing the git strategy — works as expected but liable to start building everything (e.g. every tag) so not a good strategy


• Commit in ancestry — same outcome


• Deleting the previous build for the commit — will rebuild, but only good as a manual intervention


• Deleting the workspace — same outcome

 

Workarounds

• In one job I only need to run the regular rebuild on master, so created a duplicate job that specifies master (allowing me to delete the Max Age strategy)


• Another job that matches by tag, I can manually delete previous build information if I need to rebuild from the same commit. Removing the Max Age strategy isn't possible because old release tags would start deploying to production :-o

 

Could be related to https://issues.jenkins.io/browse/JENKINS-43220

---
Originally reported by idacrobert, imported from: Ancestry Maximum Age strategy causing "Couldn't find any revision to build"

• status: Open
  
• priority: Minor
  
• component(s): git-plugin
  
• resolution: Unresolved
  
• votes: 0
  
• watchers: 2
  
• imported: 2025-12-02
  

Raw content of original issue

I have several jobs that specify Strategy for choosing what to build / Ancestry / Maximum Age of Commit. This is to prevent old heads unnecessarily building or dangerously deploying.


Since a recent upgrade to Jenkins and/or the git plugin, jobs that have this config are refusing to rebuild any commit that has already built, irrespective of the age of commit.


For example, a job that run on a daily basis (it is date-dependent and should start failing when some data is out-of-date), will build a given commit once, but will start failing on subsequent days with a log similar to below:


 



Building in workspace /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/XXX

The recommended git tool is: NONE

using credential XXX

 > git rev-parse --resolve-git-dir /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/XXX/.git # timeout=10

Fetching changes from the remote Git repository

 > git config remote.origin.url XXX.git # timeout=10

Fetching upstream changes from XXX.git

 > git --version # timeout=10

 > git --version # 'git version 2.37.0'

using GIT_SSH to set credentials 

 > git fetch --tags --force --progress -- XXX.git +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* # timeout=10

Seen branch in repository origin/HEAD

Seen branch in repository origin/master

Seen branch in repository origin/v10

Seen 3 remote branches

 > git show-ref --tags -d # timeout=10

ERROR: Couldn't find any revision to build. Verify the repository and branch configuration for this job.

Finished: FAILURE 



 


Branch specifier in this example is set to **


Another case uses refs/tags/release.*


What I've tried:



	
Recreating the job — same outcome

	
Removing the git strategy — works as expected but liable to start building everything (e.g. every tag) so not a good strategy

	
Commit in ancestry — same outcome

	
Deleting the previous build for the commit — will rebuild, but only good as a manual intervention

	
Deleting the workspace — same outcome



 


Workarounds



	
In one job I only need to run the regular rebuild on master, so created a duplicate job that specifies master (allowing me to delete the Max Age strategy)

	
Another job that matches by tag, I can manually delete previous build information if I need to rebuild from the same commit. Removing the Max Age strategy isn't possible because old release tags would start deploying to production :-o



 


Could be related to https://issues.jenkins.io/browse/JENKINS-43220

environment

```
Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS

Jenkins 2.346.1

openjdk version "1.8.0_312"

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_312-8u312-b07-0ubuntu1~20.04-b07)

OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.312-b07, mixed mode)
```