"flush_handlers task does not support when conditional"

[thbar]

I have noticed this while upgrading to Ansible 2.7.12.

I am not sure yet what the implications are (e.g. is it already not flushing, when it should?).

TASK [DavidWittman.redis : add redis init config file] ***************************************************************************
ok: [the-machine]
[WARNING]: flush_handlers task does not support when conditional

[thbar]

If I understand well, the relevant bits are around here. Please note that I don't use sentinel on this install, but there's probably the same pattern used there.

ansible-redis/tasks/server.yml

Lines 112 to 131 in 9d00d7a

	- name: add redis init config file
	template:
	dest: /etc/sysconfig/{{ redis_service_name }}
	src: redis.init.conf.j2
	mode: 0600
	when: ansible_os_family == "RedHat"
	notify: "restart redis {{ redis_port }}"
	- name: add redis init config file
	template:
	dest: /etc/default/{{ redis_service_name }}
	src: redis.init.conf.j2
	mode: 0600
	when: ansible_os_family == "Debian"
	notify: "restart redis {{ redis_port }}"
	# Flush handlers before ensuring the service is started to prevent
	# a start and then restart
	- name: flush handlers to apply config changes
	meta: flush_handlers

[thbar]

There is some input on the Ansible google group here, which seems to imply this has never worked (and failed silently before):

A when statement supplied to flush_handlers has never worked. It was silently ignored in the past, but now has a warning.

There is an open feature request to allow this to work:
ansible/ansible#41313

[thbar]

A quick update - I updated the role to latest (thanks for your work!) and wanted to report this warning still appears. Not a huge deal for me, just wanted to either close the issue or update it.

[cognifloyd]

In order to resolve this, the flush_handlers action needs to be in a separate tasks file. Then, where flush_handlers is currently used, replace it with include_tasks leaving the when condition as is.