gradle/gradle · warning

There were failing tests. See the report at: {}

Error message

There were failing tests. See the report at: {}

What it means

After a Test-type task runs, Gradle builds a failure summary (with a clickable link to the HTML report when that report is enabled). With test.ignoreFailures = true, handleTestFailures() logs this message as a warning and the task is treated as passed; with ignoreFailures = false the same message is thrown and fails the build. This entry is the ignored-failures warning branch.

Source

Thrown at platforms/software/testing-base/src/main/java/org/gradle/api/tasks/testing/AbstractTestTask.java:837

    /**
     * Whether the task should fail if test sources are present, but no tests are discovered during test execution.  Defaults to true.
     *
     * @since 9.0.0
     */
    @Input
    abstract public Property<Boolean> getFailOnNoDiscoveredTests();

    /**
     * Handles test failures based on the {@link #getIgnoreFailures()} property.
     *
     * @return the error message to throw, or {@code null} if failures are ignored
     */
    @Nullable
    private String handleTestFailures() {
        String message = buildFailureResultsMessage("There were failing tests.");

        if (getIgnoreFailures()) {
            getLogger().warn(message);
            return null;
        } else {
            return message;
        }
    }

    private String buildFailureResultsMessage(String message) {
        DirectoryReport htmlReport = getReports().getHtml();
        if (htmlReport.getRequired().get()) {
            String reportUrl = new ConsoleRenderer().asClickableFileUrl(htmlReport.getEntryPoint());
            message = message.concat(" See the report at: " + reportUrl);
        } else {
            DirectoryReport junitXmlReport = getReports().getJunitXml();
            if (junitXmlReport.getRequired().get()) {
                String resultsUrl = new ConsoleRenderer().asClickableFileUrl(junitXmlReport.getEntryPoint());
                message = message.concat(" See the results at: " + resultsUrl);
            }
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 534f27719b)

Solutions

1. Open the linked HTML report (or build/reports/tests/test/index.html) and fix the failing tests
2. If failures are expected for this run, keep ignoreFailures = true but gate the pipeline afterwards on the JUnit XML results
3. Remove ignoreFailures = true so the build fails fast on red tests
4. For known flaky tests, use targeted filtering or retry mechanisms instead of a global ignoreFailures

Example fix

// before
tasks.test { ignoreFailures = true } // red builds look green

// after
tasks.test { ignoreFailures = false } // fail fast; CI collects the report separately

// collect everything, then gate explicitly on the results
tasks.test { ignoreFailures = true } // collect the full report
tasks.register("gateOnTests") {
    doLast {
        var failures = 0
        file("build/test-results/test").walkTopDown().filter { it.name.endsWith(".xml") }.forEach {
            failures += Regex("<failure|<error").findAll(it.readText()).count()
        }
        require(failures == 0) { "$failures failing tests — see build/reports/tests/test" }
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: build.gradle with test { ignoreFailures = true } plus one or more failing tests; CI setups that collect the full report before gating the pipeline later.

Common situations: Teams wanting complete test reports before failing; flaky-test quarantines implemented as a global ignoreFailures; legacy builds where ignoreFailures was left on and red tests go unnoticed.

Related errors

• Failed to store javadoc options.
• Preserving the order of tests is not supported by this versi
• Grouping tests by instances is not supported by this version
• Could not read PGP secret key
• property '{}' could not be found on project and is needed fo

AI-assisted analysis of gradle/gradle@534f27719b (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eca8e392e41e43a9. Report an issue: GitHub.