[BUG]: UseNode fails with version set to "18.x" | Cannot read properties of null (reading 'forEach')

[jensheidrich-acn]

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Task name

UseNode

Task version

1.231.0

Issue Description

We use the task "UseNode" with version as "18.x" and "Check for Latest Version".

Builds are failing since today (2023-11-22) with error:
##[error]Cannot read properties of null (reading 'forEach')

Setting a concrete version, e.g. "18.18.2" let it run successful.

I guess the latest changes of the task introduced this issue:
https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-tasks/pull/19243/files

Environment type (Please select at least one enviroment where you face this issue)

• Self-Hosted
• Microsoft Hosted
• VMSS Pool
• Container

Azure DevOps Server type

dev.azure.com (formerly visualstudio.com)

Azure DevOps Server Version (if applicable)

No response

Operation system

Ubuntu 22.04.3

Relevant log output

##[error]Cannot read properties of null (reading 'forEach')

Full task logs with system.debug enabled

 [REPLACE THIS WITH YOUR INFORMATION] 

Repro steps

No response

[niklashogia]

We saw the same thing with the same version of the task (1.231.0)

We are running self hosted windows agents and use "version: '20.x'", "checkLatest: true".
Our quick fix was to set "checkLatest: false", then the tool did use the last cached version (20.9.0)

Now it's working again even when "checkLatest: true", and its now downloading version 20.10.0 of node.

My theory is that https://nodejs.org/dist/index.json returned a empty response. Maybe because of the load with the new version of node.

It does not seem as there is any resilience if nodeVersion:INodeVersion is empty, it would be a good idea to fallback to cached versions if this happens. Code:
https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-tasks/blob/083955360c1ec3878fc3930896293b3b28d3d0ff/Tasks/UseNodeV1/installer.ts#L128C1-L136C8

[mklenbw]

Can confirm this error on task-version 1.231.2 with agent 3.230.0.

This broke maybe hundreds of pipelines. Please fix this asap.

[DenisRumyantsev]

It is an external issue. The same issue was reported here.

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