Symfony2 post-update-cmd gives "An error occurred when generating the bootstrap file"

Question

I am currently on Symfony2 2.3.7. When I run the composer update command. In the post-update-cmd a script is run to update symfony2. But it fails:

Script Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler::buildBootstrap handling the post-update-cmd event terminated with an exception    [RuntimeException]                                        An error occurred when generating the bootstrap file.    update [--prefer-source] [--prefer-dist] [--dry-run] [--dev] [--no-dev] [--lock] [--no-plugins] [--no-custom-installers] [--no-scripts] [--no-progress] [--with-dependencies] [-v|vv|vvv|--verbose] [-o|--optimize-autoloader] [packages1] ... [packagesN] 

Any idea why this is happening? I tried to run:

composer update --no-scripts  

.. and that runs fine. The following is also working fine:

php vendor/sensio/distribution-bundle/Sensio/Bundle/DistributionBundle/Resources/bin/build_bootstrap.php 

But everytime I try the normal composer update the post script fails. Running the update with --verbose gives the following:

Script Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler::buildBootstrap handling the post-update-cmd event terminated with an exception    [RuntimeException]                                        An error occurred when generating the bootstrap file.                                                        Exception trace:  () at C:\xampp\htdocs\forvaltning\vendor\sensio\distribution-bundle\Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler.php:203  Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler::executeBuildBootstrap() at C:\xampp\htdocs\forvaltning\vendor\sensio\distribution-bundle\Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler.php:43  Sensio\Bundle\DistributionBundle\Composer\ScriptHandler::buildBootstrap() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/EventDispatcher/EventDispatcher.php:165  Composer\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher->executeEventPhpScript() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/EventDispatcher/EventDispatcher.php:138  Composer\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher->doDispatch() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/EventDispatcher/EventDispatcher.php:107  Composer\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher->dispatchCommandEvent() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/Installer.php:289  Composer\Installer->run() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/Command/UpdateCommand.php:118  Composer\Command\UpdateCommand->execute() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Command/Command.php:244  Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command->run() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:897  Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRunCommand() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:191  Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRun() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/Console/Application.php:117  Composer\Console\Application->doRun() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:121  Symfony\Component\Console\Application->run() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/Console/Application.php:83  Composer\Console\Application->run() at phar://C:/ProgramData/Composer/bin/composer.phar/bin/composer:43  require() at C:\ProgramData\Composer\bin\composer.phar:15  update [--prefer-source] [--prefer-dist] [--dry-run] [--dev] [--no-dev] [--lock] [--no-plugins] [--no-custom-installers] [--no-scripts] [--no-progress] [--with-dependencies] [-v|vv|vvv|--verbose] [-o|--optimize-autoloader] [packages1] ... [packagesN] 

The composer.json contains:

{ "name": "symfony/framework-standard-edition", "license": "MIT", "type": "project", "description": "The \"Symfony Standard Edition\" distribution", "autoload": {     "psr-0": { "": "src/" } }, "repositories": [     {         "type": "package",         "package": {             "name": "jquery/jquery",             "version": "1.9.1",             "dist": {                 "url": "http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js",                 "type": "file"             }         }     } ], "require": {     "php": ">=5.3.3",     "symfony/symfony": "2.3.*",     "twig/extensions": "1.0.*",     "symfony/assetic-bundle": "2.3.*",     "symfony/swiftmailer-bundle": "2.3.*",     "symfony/monolog-bundle": "2.3.*",     "sensio/distribution-bundle": "2.3.*",     "sensio/framework-extra-bundle": "2.3.*",     "sensio/generator-bundle": "2.3.*",     "knplabs/knp-menu": "2.0.*@dev",     "leafo/lessphp": "0.4.*@dev",     "knplabs/knp-menu-bundle": "2.0.*@dev",     "incenteev/composer-parameter-handler": "~2.0",     "twbs/bootstrap": "2.3.*",     "jquery/jquery": "1.9.*",     "FortAwesome/Font-Awesome": "3.2.1",     "egeloen/ckeditor-bundle": "2.*" }, "require-dev": {     "phpunit/phpunit": "3.7.*" }, "scripts": {     "post-install-cmd": [         "Incenteev\\ParameterHandler\\ScriptHandler::buildParameters",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::buildBootstrap",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::clearCache",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::installAssets",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::installRequirementsFile"     ],     "post-update-cmd": [         "Incenteev\\ParameterHandler\\ScriptHandler::buildParameters",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::buildBootstrap",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::clearCache",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::installAssets",         "Sensio\\Bundle\\DistributionBundle\\Composer\\ScriptHandler::installRequirementsFile"     ] }, "config": {     "bin-dir": "bin" }, "minimum-stability": "stable", "extra": {     "symfony-app-dir": "app",     "symfony-web-dir": "web",     "incenteev-parameters": {         "file": "app/config/parameters.yml"     },     "branch-alias": {         "dev-master": "2.3-dev"     } } 

}

Answer 1

How to solve install/update Symfony 2 issues

One important Symfony requirement is that the app/cache and app/logs directories must be writable both by the web server and the command line user.

On Linux and macOS systems, if your web server user is different from your command line user, you need to configure permissions properly to avoid issues. There are several ways to achieve that:

The most common solution :

In a terminal execute following commands :

rm -rf bin rm -rf vendor composer install # or if your didn't install composer php composer.phar install 

It should work now! For more informations see Symfony installation.

If you still have this error : «An error occurred when generating the bootstrap file»
It means that you have file permission issue.
See below procedure for solve the problem ↓

Setting up or Fixing File Permissions :

In a terminal execute following commands :

rm -rf app/cache/* rm -rf app/logs/* 

On macOS systems, the chmod command supports the +a flag to define an ACL. Use the following script to determine your web server user and grant the needed permissions:

HTTPDUSER=$(ps axo user,comm | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\  -f1) sudo chmod +a "$HTTPDUSER allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs sudo chmod +a "$(whoami) allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs 

On most Linux and BSD distributions don't support chmod +a, but do support another utility called setfacl. You may need to install setfacl and enable ACL support on your disk partition before using it. Then, use the following script to determine your web server user and grant the needed permissions:

HTTPDUSER=$(ps axo user,comm | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\  -f1) # if this doesn't work, try adding `-n` option sudo setfacl -dR -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:$(whoami):rwX app/cache app/logs sudo setfacl -R -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:$(whoami):rwX app/cache app/logs 

If none of the previous methods work for you

Change the umask so that the cache and log directories are group-writable or world-writable (depending if the web server user and the command line user are in the same group or not). To achieve this, put the following line at the beginning of the app/console, web/app.php and web/app_dev.php files:

umask(0002); // This will let the permissions be 0775 // or umask(0000); // This will let the permissions be 0777 

Note : Changing the umask is not thread-safe, so the ACL methods are recommended when they are available.

For more information see official documentation : Symfony file permissions