Synchronizing submodule url intermittently fails with “fatal: not a git repository” in CI

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Summary

Intermittently, checking out the submodules for our project in one of our CI jobs fails, with the following output:

Updating/initializing submodules...
Submodule 'subprojects/gvdb' (https://gitlab-ci-token:[MASKED]@gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvdb.git) registered for path 'subprojects/gvdb'
Synchronizing submodule url for 'subprojects/gvdb'
fatal: not a git repository: subprojects/gvdb/../../.git/modules/subprojects/gvdb

Re-running that CI job succeeds. The problem happens maybe 1 in 10 CI runs, very roughly.

Relevant configuration:

• Project: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib
• .gitmodules
  • In particular, url = ../../GNOME/gvdb.git and shallow = true
  • Which points to this repository: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvdb
• .gitlab-ci.yml
  • In particular, GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: "normal" for this job
• This fork of the project had the git depth unset in the the CI/CD settings, but the main project has it set to 1; I don’t think that makes a difference

Output from a successful submodule fetch:

Updating/initializing submodules with git depth set to 1...
Submodule 'subprojects/gvdb' (https://gitlab-ci-token:[MASKED]@gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvdb.git) registered for path 'subprojects/gvdb'
Synchronizing submodule url for 'subprojects/gvdb'
Cloning into '/builds/GNOME/glib/subprojects/gvdb'...
Submodule path 'subprojects/gvdb': checked out '0854af0fdb6d527a8d1999835ac2c5059976c210'
Entering 'subprojects/gvdb'
Entering 'subprojects/gvdb'

Steps to reproduce

Since it’s an intermittent issue and I don’t fully understand what’s causing it, I’m afraid I can’t give reproducer instructions, sorry.

Example Project

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/

Unfortunately it’s not on gitlab.com.

What is the current bug behavior?

Submodule fetch intermittently fails.

What is the expected correct behavior?

Submodule fetch works reliably.

Results of GitLab environment info

I don’t have immediate access to this, but can get specific information off our sysadmins if that would be helpful — just say what you need.

Results of GitLab application Check

Same