Self-hosted runners cache not working when using service containers

[omri-shilton]

Description:
Running on self hosted runner using the following: https://github.com/github-aws-runners/terraform-aws-github-runner
I have a workflow that has multiple jobs, some are regular and some have service containers ie:

  Job-A:
    runs-on: [self-hosted, linux, x64, ubuntu-latest]
    steps:
      - name: Check out repository code 🕵🏻‍♀️
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: '3.10.10'
          cache: 'pip'

      - name: Run Mypy
        run: |
          pip install -r backend/requirements/linter-requirements.txt
          mypy --config backend/mypy.ini backend


  Job-B:
    runs-on: [self-hosted, linux, x64, ubuntu-latest]
    services:
      postgresql:
        image: somerepo/someimage:latest
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
        env:
          SOME_VAR: SOMEVAR
        credentials:
          username: someuser
          password: somepass
    steps:
      - name: Check out repository code 🕵🏻‍♀️
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: '3.10.10'
          cache: 'pip'

      - name: Install newly added packages
        run: |
          pip install -r backend/requirements/requirements.txt
          pip install -r backend/requirements/dev-requirements.txt
          pip install psycopg2-binary==2.9.9

On the job that don't have service containers i'm getting these logs:

you can see that the cache is found and then using the cached packages.

On the job that has service containers i'm getting these logs:

you can see that the cache is found and then still downloading the packages instead of using the cache.

When I log into the machine that ran the second job i can see that .cache/pip/ folder has many packages.

Action version:
4

Platform:

• Ubuntu

Runner type:

• Self-hosted - version 2.322.0

Tools version:

3.10.10

Repro steps:
copy the workflow jobs that I listed and fill in some real data.

Expected behavior:
Cache to be used on both jobs.

Actual behavior:
cache is working only on jobs without service containers.

[mahabaleshwars]

Hi @omri-shilton,
Thank you for creating this issue. We will investigate it and provide feedback as soon as we have some updates.