No feedback when upgrading a package fails

[GHTaarn]

Upgrading the Revise package from 3.5.15 to the newest version with pkg"up Revise" does not have the desired effect, the package stays at version 3.5.15:

Installing Julia 1.11.1+0.x64.linux.gnu
               _
   _       _ _(_)_     |  Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
  (_)     | (_) (_)    |
   _ _   _| |_  __ _   |  Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
  | | | | | | |/ _` |  |
  | | |_| | | | (_| |  |  Version 1.11.1 (2024-10-16)
 _/ |\__'_|_|_|\__'_|  |  Official https://julialang.org/ release
|__/                   |

(@v1.11) pkg> add [email protected]
  Installing known registries into `~/.julia`
       Added `General` registry to ~/.julia/registries
    Updating registry at `~/.julia/registries/General.toml`
   Resolving package versions...
   Installed OrderedCollections ─ v1.6.3
   Installed CodeTracking ─────── v1.3.6
   Installed JuliaInterpreter ─── v0.9.37
   Installed Requires ─────────── v1.3.0
   Installed LoweredCodeUtils ─── v2.4.8
   Installed Revise ───────────── v3.5.15
    Updating `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Project.toml`
⌃ [295af30f] + Revise v3.5.15
    Updating `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Manifest.toml`
  [da1fd8a2] + CodeTracking v1.3.6
  [aa1ae85d] + JuliaInterpreter v0.9.37
⌅ [6f1432cf] + LoweredCodeUtils v2.4.8
  [bac558e1] + OrderedCollections v1.6.3
  [ae029012] + Requires v1.3.0
⌃ [295af30f] + Revise v3.5.15
  [0dad84c5] + ArgTools v1.1.2
  [56f22d72] + Artifacts v1.11.0
  [2a0f44e3] + Base64 v1.11.0
  [ade2ca70] + Dates v1.11.0
  [8ba89e20] + Distributed v1.11.0
  [f43a241f] + Downloads v1.6.0
  [7b1f6079] + FileWatching v1.11.0
  [b77e0a4c] + InteractiveUtils v1.11.0
  [b27032c2] + LibCURL v0.6.4
  [76f85450] + LibGit2 v1.11.0
  [8f399da3] + Libdl v1.11.0
  [56ddb016] + Logging v1.11.0
  [d6f4376e] + Markdown v1.11.0
  [ca575930] + NetworkOptions v1.2.0
  [44cfe95a] + Pkg v1.11.0
  [de0858da] + Printf v1.11.0
  [3fa0cd96] + REPL v1.11.0
  [9a3f8284] + Random v1.11.0
  [ea8e919c] + SHA v0.7.0
  [9e88b42a] + Serialization v1.11.0
  [6462fe0b] + Sockets v1.11.0
  [f489334b] + StyledStrings v1.11.0
  [fa267f1f] + TOML v1.0.3
  [a4e569a6] + Tar v1.10.0
  [cf7118a7] + UUIDs v1.11.0
  [4ec0a83e] + Unicode v1.11.0
  [deac9b47] + LibCURL_jll v8.6.0+0
  [e37daf67] + LibGit2_jll v1.7.2+0
  [29816b5a] + LibSSH2_jll v1.11.0+1
  [c8ffd9c3] + MbedTLS_jll v2.28.6+0
  [14a3606d] + MozillaCACerts_jll v2023.12.12
  [83775a58] + Zlib_jll v1.2.13+1
  [8e850ede] + nghttp2_jll v1.59.0+0
  [3f19e933] + p7zip_jll v17.4.0+2
        Info Packages marked with ⌃ and ⌅ have new versions available. Those with ⌃ may be upgradable, but those with ⌅ are restricted by compatibility constraints from upgrading. To see why use `status --outdated -m`
Precompiling project...
  6 dependencies successfully precompiled in 15 seconds. 29 already precompiled.
  1 dependency had output during precompilation:
┌ LoweredCodeUtils
│  ┌ Warning: skipping callee #f#38 (called by f) due to UndefVarError(:f, LoweredCodeUtils)
│  └ @ LoweredCodeUtils ~/.julia/packages/LoweredCodeUtils/608oq/src/signatures.jl:316
└  

(@v1.11) pkg> st
Status `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Project.toml`
⌃ [295af30f] Revise v3.5.15
Info Packages marked with ⌃ have new versions available and may be upgradable.

(@v1.11) pkg> up Revise
    Updating registry at `~/.julia/registries/General.toml`
  No Changes to `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Project.toml`
  No Changes to `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Manifest.toml`
        Info We haven't cleaned this depot up for a bit, running Pkg.gc()...
      Active manifest files: 1 found
      Active artifact files: 0 found
      Active scratchspaces: 0 found
     Deleted no artifacts, repos, packages or scratchspaces

(@v1.11) pkg> st
Status `~/.julia/environments/v1.11/Project.toml`
⌃ [295af30f] Revise v3.5.15
Info Packages marked with ⌃ have new versions available and may be upgradable.

(@v1.11) pkg> 

Fortunately in my case, I can just use pkg"upgrade" which does upgrade Revise to the latest version.

[serenity4]

I can reproduce, the following successfully updates Revise:

pkg> up --preserve=none Revise
pkg> up --preserve=direct Revise

but the following fails to do so:

pkg> up --preserve=all Revise
pkg> up Revise

I believe preserve=all is the default when a package is specified (so it updates only the selected package). And, to update Revise to the next version we also need to update LoweredCodeUtils, which I am guessing Pkg does not attempt due to the preserve mode.

[serenity4]

The behavior of preserve modes is described in https://pkgdocs.julialang.org/v1/managing-packages/#updating and illustrated in #3001. I wonder why --preserve=direct was not made the default though 🤔

Or at least, when upgrading a package specifically (via up SomePkg), IMO it should try to update to the required version (latest if unspecified) without upgrading anything else. If it fails (e.g. due to compat bounds on indirect packages), it should try a slightly stricter version of --preserve=direct to only allow upgrades for dependencies that otherwise prevent SomePkg from upgrading due to compatibility requirements.

EDIT: the same issue/solution was briefly mentioned in #4009

[GHTaarn]

Thank you for your comment, now I know what to do in future. I agree with you that I was expecting a behaviour similar to your suggestion or to --preserve=direct. An alternative could also be to just write a message similar to "Revise was not upgraded because this would require upgrading some packages that you did not specify. Please consider using the --preserve flag or resolving the dependencies explicitly"