bug: Failed install of Ruby shows as installed when using `asdf list`

[KieranP]

Describe the Bug

Try to compile Ruby with YJIT but without Rust being present. The compile fails. However, asdf shows ruby as being installed. asdf list shows the failed version as being available. And running asdf install ruby 3.4.1 says "already installed" even though it wasn't, and the ruby binaries are missing.

Steps to Reproduce

See above

Expected Behaviour

Should cleanup after failed install

Actual Behaviour

Leaves failed install folder, asdf thinks it is installed`

Environment

› asdf info
OS:
Darwin Kierans-MacBook-Pro.local 24.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.3.0: Thu Jan  2 20:24:24 PST 2025; root:xnu-11215.81.4~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T6030 arm64

SHELL:
zsh 5.9 (arm64-apple-darwin24.0)

BASH VERSION:
3.2.57(1)-release

ASDF VERSION:
0.16.1

ASDF INTERNAL VARIABLES:
ASDF_DEFAULT_TOOL_VERSIONS_FILENAME=.tool-versions
ASDF_DATA_DIR=/Users/kieran/.asdf
ASDF_CONFIG_FILE=/Users/kieran/.asdfrc

ASDF INSTALLED PLUGINS:
nodejs    https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git  93bd217ba74f05080eebb7d8e1c146a385b01d7f
ruby      https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-ruby.git    98e32b9c38e146b164d651c96ccb6d5fa4c3af90
rust      https://github.com/code-lever/asdf-rust.git 95acf4fe65df1de74fca502482b8f3ac5af73c05

asdf plugins affected (if relevant)

No response

[jpgomezt]

I had a similar issue yesterday with java when upgrading to asdf 0.16.1
Make sure you have followed this steps (doesn't matter if you already are in 0.16.1) and after that, uninstall and reinstall all plugins
Even tho they appear as installed, for some reason the binaries are not there and the shim was not working correctly
Also, make sure you have the ruby dependencies installed: brew install openssl@3 readline libyaml gmp autoconf. I suppose you are using brew, and in my case, when I updated the asdf cask, it removed some libraries some plugins were needing.
Hope this helps you!

[KieranP]

@jpgomezt The issue I reported was after a complete refresh (uninstalled all plugins and reinstalled). I forgot to asdf install rust ... before trying to install ruby, and the ruby compile failed, but asdf kept the version folder in place, so asdf list showed it as installed and trying to install again said "already installed" when it wasn't because of failed compile. I had to run asdf uninstall even though it wasn't properly installed to begin with. Looks like v0.16 is missing cleanup code when install fails.

[genezys]

I had the same issue when trying to install the latest Ruby with an old Ruby plugin.

$ asdf install              
Version not found

If this is a new Ruby version, you may need to update the plugin:
asdf plugin update ruby
failed to run install callback: exit status 1

$ asdf plugin update ruby
updated ruby to ref refs/heads/master

$ asdf install           
version {version 3.4.1} of ruby is already installed

$ ls -l ~/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/   
total 0

$ rmdir ~/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/

$ asdf install                      
Downloading ruby-build...
==> Downloading ruby-3.4.1.tar.gz...
...

[Stratus3D]

Hi everyone, you should not need to re-install all plugins in order to get them to work after the upgrade to v0.16.x. Make sure you run asdf and verify that the version your running is a v0.16.x version, then run asdf reshim to regenerate all shims. The stales shims from the previous version WILL cause you issues if you don't re-generate them. See the final step in the migration guide - https://asdf-vm.com/guide/upgrading-to-v0-16.html#_4-regenerate-shims

[rbazinet]

Regenerating shims did not work. With v0.16.5 installed, this worked:

asdf plugin remove ruby asdf plugin add ruby asdf install ruby 3.4.2

[mzagaja]

Same, I had to completely uninstall the ruby plug-in and then reinstall all my rubies.

If you have ripgrep installed you can easily grab most of the ones you use from your parent directory for your repos:

 rg -l "^[0-9]" --glob ".ruby-version" | xargs cat | sort | uniq | xargs -I{} sh -c 'echo "Installing Ruby {}..." && asdf install ruby {}'

[bhuynhdev]

This seems to be an issue with other plugins too. Today I did asdf install nodejs 20 which failed because I didn't fully specified the version string. But asdf list nodejs still showed 20 as an installed version. I have to manually asdf uninstall nodejs 20

[juanpaco]

Maybe some more information that is helpful.

Here is information about my asdf setup:

> cat .tool-versions | grep ruby
ruby 3.4.2

> asdf info
OS:
Darwin MACHINENAME 23.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 23.3.0: Wed Dec 20 21:30:44 PST 2023; root:xnu-10002.81.5~7/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64

SHELL:
GNU bash, version 5.2.37(1)-release (aarch64-apple-darwin23.4.0)
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

BASH VERSION:
5.2.37(1)-release

ASDF VERSION:
0.16.7

ASDF INTERNAL VARIABLES:
ASDF_DEFAULT_TOOL_VERSIONS_FILENAME=.tool-versions
ASDF_DATA_DIR=/path/to/data/dir
ASDF_CONFIG_FILE=/path/to/config/file

ASDF INSTALLED PLUGINS:
nodejs    https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git fd2c7f94c4c71416047cacf2af6e4fa819b364b7
ruby      https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-ruby.git   2885ab7d311715ec4f6dfe2fc5dfed329fa1f263

When I attempt to update the Ruby plugin, it says it was successful:

> asdf plugin update ruby
updated ruby to ref refs/heads/master

However, if I go to the Ruby plugin's folder in my asdf data directory, the git status looks quite odd:

plugins/ruby > git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
	modified:   README.md
	modified:   lib/utils.sh

I wouldn't expect to see modified files there. When I inspect what's different between the lib/utils.sh file and master, it shows:

plugins/ruby > git diff --cached lib/utils.sh
diff --git a/lib/utils.sh b/lib/utils.sh
index 31d322e..8bce63a 100644
--- a/lib/utils.sh
+++ b/lib/utils.sh
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash

-RUBY_BUILD_VERSION="${ASDF_RUBY_BUILD_VERSION:-v20250418}"
+RUBY_BUILD_VERSION="${ASDF_RUBY_BUILD_VERSION:-v20250215}"
 RUBY_BUILD_TAG="$RUBY_BUILD_VERSION"

 echoerr() {

It appears that instead of taking the new ruby-build version v20250418, it has reverted it back to v20250215. This then causes installation of Ruby 3.4.3, which I'm trying to install, to fail.

I don't know enough about asdf to know if this is a problem with the Ruby plugin, or if it's a problem with asdf.

[Stratus3D]

Hi @juanpaco, @KieranP and everyone else here. Sorry for the delay in replying here. There are a couple issues that have contributed to the behaviors you all have observed:

• There was a bug that treated failed installs as successes (fixed by fix: remove install directory for version when install fails #2024)
• There was a bug preventing plugin Git repositories from being updated properly as @juanpaco pointed out (fixed by fix: preserve files untracked by Git on plugin update #1995 and feat: switch back to native git client #1998)
• The upgrade guide didn't include all necessary steps to fully upgrade to the latest versions (fixed by docs: add missing information 0.16.0 upgrade instructions #2103)

Given that everything described on this thread has been fixed by the above PRs I'm going to close this issue. Please upgrade to the latest release of asdf if you are still experiencing issues. If anyone here is still having problems please leave a comment.