How can I prevent one matrix cell with multiple stages from failing the whole job?

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1

Jenkins setup:

Jenkins: 2.426.3
OS: Linux - 4.18.0-193.1.2.el8_2.x86_64
Java: 11.0.13 - Red Hat, Inc. (OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM)

I’d like one cell (with multiple stages) in a matrix to be special and not cause the main job to fail if a stage within the cell fails. There’s information about using try/catch blocks and catchError options to do this for a single stage but not for multiple stages. Apparently the try/catch block is a script and can only contain steps so after a lot of message around I ended up with this structure:

        stage("Matrix build") {
          matrix {
            axes {
              axis {
                name "BUILD_VERSION"
                values "a", "b", "c", "d"
              }
            }
            stages {
              stage("Exception catcher") {
                steps {
                  script {
                    try {
                      stage("Primary matrix stage") {
                        stages {
                          stage("A") {
                            steps {
                              sh """
                                echo Hello
                              """
                            }
                          }

                          stage("B") {
                            when {
                              expression {
                                env.some_condition == "true"
                              }
                            }
                            steps {
                              sh """
                                echo Hello
                              """
                            }
                          }
                        }
                      }
                    }
                    catch (e) {
                      if (env.BUILD_VERSION == "c") {
                        echo "Ignoring exception in matrix cell for config `${env.BUILD_VERSION}': ${e.message}"
                      } else {
                        throw e
                      }
                    }
                  }
                }

However, I get an error message like so, which appears to be from the stages inside the try block:

2025-03-31 14:36:00 |  java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: No such DSL method 'stages' found among steps [ArtifactoryGradleBuild, MavenDescriptorStep, ...

Is it even possible to cover multiple stages with a try/catch block? If so, what is the correct syntax?

Thanks.

2

You can’t put stages inside stage , but stage is also a normal step that you can use
The following should work I think (untested)

stage("Matrix build") {
  matrix {
    axes {
      axis {
        name "BUILD_VERSION"
        values "a", "b", "c", "d"
      }
    }
    stages {
      stage("Primary matrix stage") {
        steps {
          script {
            try {
              stage("A") {
                sh """
                  echo Hello
                """
              }

              stage("B") {
                sh """
                  echo Hello
                """
              }
            }
            catch (e) {
              if (env.BUILD_VERSION == "c") {
                echo "Ignoring exception in matrix cell for config `${env.BUILD_VERSION}': ${e.message}"
              } else {
                throw e
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
3

Umm..

stages

…
| Allowed | Inside the pipeline block, or within a stage. |

– Pipeline Syntax

No, I tried this already and then when options inside my stages (edit: edited example to show them) cause:

2025-03-31 16:36:15 |  java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: No such DSL method 'when' found among steps [ArtifactoryGradleBuild, MavenDescriptorStep, ...
4

The moment you enter the script block you’re no longer using declarative pipeline syntax but scripted syntax. And stages and when are not known steps in scripted pipeline.

5

So how do I do what I need?

6

You can use parallel in scripted instead.

Example: docker-agent/Jenkinsfile at ce8fc915c8b6a3787f487377e62fa22262c92017 · jenkinsci/docker-agent · GitHub
All these parallel stages are independants.

7

Instead of a matrix?

8

Yes, parallel instead of matrix