Pipeline errors are not properly handled in Gulp v5

[ehmicky]

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What were you expecting to happen?

When using gulp.src(...).pipe(stream).pipe(secondStream), any stream error should be shown by Gulp and complete the task (marking it as failed).

What actually happened?

stream errors in the pipeline are not shown by Gulp, and the task is shown as incomplete.

Please give us a sample of your gulpfile

// gulpfile.js
import gulp from 'gulp'
import {Transform, PassThrough} from 'node:stream'

export default () => gulp
  .src('./gulpfile.js')
  .pipe(new Transform({
    transform(file, encoding, done) {
      done(new Error('example'))
    },
    objectMode: true,
  }))
  .pipe(new PassThrough({objectMode: true}))

Terminal output / screenshots

With Gulp v5:

$ gulp
[01:46:48] Using gulpfile ~/Desktop/gulpfile.js
[01:46:48] Starting 'default'...
[01:46:48] The following tasks did not complete: default
Did you forget to signal async completion?

With Gulp v4, this worked correctly:

$ gulp
[01:45:39] Using gulpfile ~/Desktop/gulpfile.js
[01:45:39] Starting 'default'...
[01:45:39] 'default' errored after 15 ms
[01:45:39] Error: example
    at Transform.transform [as _transform] (file:///.../Desktop/gulpfile.js:8:12)
    at Transform._write (node:internal/streams/transform:171:8)
    at writeOrBuffer (node:internal/streams/writable:564:12)
    at _write (node:internal/streams/writable:493:10)
    at Writable.write (node:internal/streams/writable:502:10)
    at DestroyableTransform.ondata (/.../Desktop/node_modules/to-through/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_readable.js:619:20)
    at DestroyableTransform.emit (node:events:520:28)
    at DestroyableTransform.emit (node:domain:551:15)
    at addChunk (/.../Desktop/node_modules/to-through/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_readable.js:291:12)
    at readableAddChunk (/.../Desktop/node_modules/to-through/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_readable.js:278:11)

Please provide the following information:

• OS & version [e.g. MacOS Catalina 10.15.4]: Ubuntu 24.04
• node version (run node -v): 22.3.0
• npm version (run npm -v): 10.8.1
• gulp version (run gulp -v): 5.0.0

Additional information

This bug only happens when the stream that errors is not the last line in the pipeline. This means .pipe() must be called more than once.

It seems like this bug is related to vinyl-fs (https://github.com/gulpjs/vinyl-fs/pull/333 by @sttk) and to-through (https://github.com/gulpjs/to-through/pull/9 by @coreyfarrell) switching to streamx. The problem seems to be happening inside async-done, specifically the following line:

https://github.com/gulpjs/async-done/blob/4a7efae92c90ae6358412f2dc759561f0cb94ccc/index.js#L31

The error event is not properly triggered on domain, which means async-done never completes.

Looking at the Node.js source code:

• domain.once('error') is triggered in Node.js here: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/eb54c54bf5f7c077ec094d27cc1d93cd318bde06/lib/domain.js#L539
• However, that event is not triggered if the event emitter (here the stream) has any error event listener: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/eb54c54bf5f7c077ec094d27cc1d93cd318bde06/lib/domain.js#L481

What seems to be happening is:

• A stream in the pipeline errors
• This calls stream.destroy(error)
• Which itself calls stream.emit('error', error)

Then, in Gulp v4:

• The .pipe() logic from readable-stream catches the error event, removes the event listener then calls stream.emit('error', error) again, here: https://github.com/nodejs/readable-stream/blob/c85db76d4c41f64fd082c9263c3a918bec6f38a0/lib/_stream_readable.js#L640.
• Since there are no more error event listeners, domain.once('error') is properly triggered.
• This results in async-done completing properly.

However, in Gulp v5:

• The .pipe() logic from streamx does something similar: https://github.com/mafintosh/streamx/blob/625ce37f624aa51cda95fa1bffdc3fae2ecd03a5/index.js#L274 and https://github.com/mafintosh/streamx/blob/625ce37f624aa51cda95fa1bffdc3fae2ecd03a5/index.js#L443
• However, it does not remove the error event listener.
• This means domain.once('error') is not triggered due to https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/eb54c54bf5f7c077ec094d27cc1d93cd318bde06/lib/domain.js#L481
• Therefore async-done does not complete, and Gulp shows the task as incomplete.