Error during: Ensure Homebrew is installed

[Dante1349]

I have this issue on some mac machines, but i didn't find a good way to resolve it. I deleted the homebrew directory on my mac, but now i have problems during the cask installation because the casks are not registered within the new homebrew installation. Is there any solution to this. This came up during the lastest macOS updates.

[jdm-twtr]

I've got the same error:

fatal: [macmini62]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": "/usr/bin/git clone --origin origin --depth 1 --branch master https://github.com/Homebrew/brew /opt/homebrew", "msg": "fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory.", "rc": 128, "stderr": "fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory.\n", "stderr_lines": ["fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory."], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}

[kenyee]

Same... looks like this:

TASK [geerlingguy.mac.homebrew : Ensure Homebrew is installed.] ****************
fatal: [androidsim02]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": "/usr/bin/git clone --origin origin --depth 1 --branch master https://github.com/Homebrew/brew /opt/homebrew", "msg": "fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory.", "rc": 128, "stderr": "fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory.\n", "stderr_lines": ["fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory."], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}

Shouldn't it be just checking that all files are there instead of erroring if homebrew has already been installed?

[kenyee]

It looks like the git task is correctly set to update=false:

https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-collection-mac/blob/1e40a35d543dc0c33fe08f557a7a75b204b83eb2/roles/homebrew/tasks/main.yml#L57C13-L57C18

But I don't see a check that this directory exists already first to avoid the git checkout...

[kenyee]

Looks like it checks if homebrew is installed here:

ansible-collection-mac/roles/homebrew/tasks/main.yml

Line 39 in 1e40a35

path: "{{ homebrew_brew_bin_path }}/brew"

by looking for the /opt/homebrew/bin/brew file

[stale]

This issue has been marked 'stale' due to lack of recent activity. If there is no further activity, the issue will be closed in another 30 days. Thank you for your contribution!

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[javydekoning]

https://github.com/geerlingguy/ansible-collection-mac/blob/master/roles/homebrew/tasks/main.yml#L37-L61C13

 TASK [geerlingguy.mac.homebrew : Ensure Homebrew is installed.] ****************
[ERROR]: Task failed: Module failed: fatal: destination path '/opt/homebrew' already exists and is not an empty directory.

These roles should really be idempotent. Looks like this repo is no longer maintained tho.

[stale]

This issue is no longer marked for closure.

[geerlingguy]

@javydekoning - I have not had this issue on any of my Macs, and CI passes on a fresh install, so I'm not sure why that might be failing in some instances. Maybe if there's a pre-existing install that has different permissions than expected?

[javydekoning]

No, it's also failing on my github CI:

https://github.com/javydekoning/mac-dev-playbook

This workflow specifically: https://github.com/javydekoning/mac-dev-playbook/blob/main/.github/workflows/ci.yml

Either way, shouldn't the task be idempotent?

[geerlingguy]

The way it's currently constructed:

- name: Check if homebrew already exists.
  stat:
    path: "{{ homebrew_brew_bin_path }}/brew"
  register: pre_installed_brew

...

# Clone Homebrew.
- name: Ensure Homebrew is installed.
  git:
    repo: "{{ homebrew_repo }}"
    version: master
    dest: "{{ homebrew_install_path }}"
    update: false
    depth: 1
  become: true
  become_user: "{{ homebrew_user }}"
  when: not pre_installed_brew.stat.exists

And the path is using:

homebrew_install_path: "{{ homebrew_prefix }}{{ '/Homebrew' if ansible_machine != 'arm64' }}"

Have you maybe overridden your homebrew_install_path? I'm not having issues running the playbook idempotently across the three Macs I use (two on Tahoe, one on Sequioa, but all three are Apple Silicon Macs), and I'm trying to figure out what might be different.

Can you also check your homebrew_install_path directory and list the contents (also maybe the homebrew_brew_bin_path)? Maybe the directory is there but there's no brew binary?

(And as a follow-up, my CI job is passing: https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook/actions/runs/18366114874 — but I also manually remove all the Homebrew stuff from the GitHub Actions environment prior to beginning the test.)

[javydekoning]

The way it's currently constructed:

• name: Check if homebrew already exists.
  stat:
  path: "{{ homebrew_brew_bin_path }}/brew"
  register: pre_installed_brew

...

Clone Homebrew.

• name: Ensure Homebrew is installed.
  git:
  repo: "{{ homebrew_repo }}"
  version: master
  dest: "{{ homebrew_install_path }}"
  update: false
  depth: 1
  become: true
  become_user: "{{ homebrew_user }}"
  when: not pre_installed_brew.stat.exists

And the path is using:

homebrew_install_path: "{{ homebrew_prefix }}{{ '/Homebrew' if ansible_machine != 'arm64' }}"

Have you maybe overridden your homebrew_install_path? I'm not having issues running the playbook idempotently across the three Macs I use (two on Tahoe, one on Sequioa, but all three are Apple Silicon Macs), and I'm trying to figure out what might be different.

Can you also check your homebrew_install_path directory and list the contents (also maybe the homebrew_brew_bin_path)? Maybe the directory is there but there's no brew binary?

(And as a follow-up, my CI job is passing: https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook/actions/runs/18366114874 — but I also manually remove all the Homebrew stuff from the GitHub Actions environment prior to beginning the test.)

Likely because you uninstall first: https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook/blob/master/.github/workflows/ci.yml#L50-L51

Using the playbook as Desired State Configuration, you'd expect it to work even if Homebrew is already installed. I can this weekend whether or not uninstalling first "fixes" the CI.