Error: Missing Head Report

[kristof-mattei]

TLDR:

• Codecov/project check stuck
• First navigation to the page shows 'all good'
• Second navigation to the page shows 'missing head report'

I have a weird & recurring issue where I have a build that posted an lcov file, but the CodeCov status remains pending:

The log posts the following link:

Your upload is now processing. When finished, results will be available at: https://app.codecov.io/github/kristof-mattei/axum-proxy/commit/77811d41b1467196db1b6d57cf9b22c5115a1dd0

Upon navigating to that link I see the following view:

And upon refreshing the page (!) I see:

And the check remains stuck in this position.

I cannot reproduce this issue. But when the codecov/project step is stuck, it is always the same behavior. First navigation shows 'No files covered by tests were changed', and the second one has 'Missing Head Report'.

There are multiple calls happening to the github graphql api, and one of the first ones shows something like this:

But then a subsequent call (same page session, no refresh yet) shows:

[LilyAcorn]

I have also been seeing this on my open source repo. For example:

https://app.codecov.io/github/LilyAcorn/django-rusty-templates/commit/896746539d611e8835ba6c2f93c156d798a9a892

All the commits without any coverage reported are Missing Head Report:

But coverage files are being uploaded successfully.

[Torgen]

Mine are the same right now on https://github.com/Torgen/codex-blackboard. Notice that the coverage reports are listed as "Started", not "completed".

[Blacksmoke16]

Bump, also seeing this today with https://app.codecov.io/github/athena-framework/athena/commit/7a1f4439dc28400fdc313e0189343625226364ba.

Going to the PR itself says:

Why is there no coverage data? the data is not yet available and still processing.

And that:

Unable to compare commits because the head commit did not upload a coverage report.

EDIT: Have since re-ran the jobs and they started working so 🤷.

[hzhangxyz]

Same here.

I get error saying:

Missing Head Report

Unable to compare commits because the head commit did not upload a coverage report.
[Learn more here](https://docs.codecov.com/docs/error-reference#missing-base-report)

at this link, but its head commit is fine at this link .

[mrz1836]

Also have this issue:
https://app.codecov.io/gh/mrz1836/go-coverage/commit/7e361d57a46e35fd5835f787f94e5bdf890009b4

Several of my open source repos - I am unsure where the problem lies - maybe with the file/uploading...? I'm scratching my head

[vEpiphyte]

We're also seeing this issue - for example:
https://app.codecov.io/github/vertexproject/synapse/commit/faed5a750f2c2e79564769e19162831a0d8a8952 despite previous PR commits showing coverage and the PR head commit also having coverage reported.

[rohan-at-sentry]

Hi all.

We're taking a look at what's going on here

[vEpiphyte]

@rohan-at-sentry Are these errors corresponding 1:1 with the github outages?

[rohan-at-sentry]

it's possible. we're still looking into this.

[sr-murthy]

@rohan-at-sentry Same problem with my project: the codecov badge should be 100%, but is now Unknown, because Codecov says it did not receive a coverage report from the latest commit on main. This cannot be true if you go by the CI job logs. I even set verbose: true in the Codecov upload job in my workflow, and it says the report was uploaded successfully no errors. Here is the last line from the job log:

debug - 2025-08-16 20:53:57,840 -- Upload result --- {"result": "RequestResult(error=None, warnings=[], status_code=200, text='')"}

[chotchki]

My project started working again so maybe the problem is fixed for everyone? https://app.codecov.io/gh/chotchki/tray-wrapper

[sr-murthy]

Nice to hear that, but this has happened too often: it seems fine, it breaks, and then it seems to work, and then again it breaks again ...

We need a permanent and resilient fix please: the coverage badge is an important sign of code quality, and people using this can't afford to have the badge suddenly become a grey "Unknown".

[chotchki]

Just thinking outside the box, could grcov html reports produce a badge? You could statically deploy those as a GitHub page as a work around. (That was what I was thinking of doing if it didn't start working again).

[sr-murthy]

I've just checked and my project badge is still broken: checking Codecov dashboard shows it is not processing the coverage report from the last workflow run, and I have the debug logs which show that coverage report (XML) was generated fine on the runner without any errors, and the upload had no errors.

I am now reduced to using static badges, because I know my coverage is 100% and will remain that way.

[manmartgarc]

Same here - I wasted a lot of time yesterday trying to debug.

[rouilj]

I was just about to post a new discussion. It looks like my issues go back a couple of months. You can see the issue at:

https://app.codecov.io/gh/roundup-tracker/roundup/commit/72d453ab3e28a67a800d2d37dc45046725a97b62

and

https://app.codecov.io/gh/roundup-tracker/roundup/commit/d66df4491882eda8388904d06616d1f5075b9ba0

which sems to be the earliest.

I don't run CI on every commit (small doc changes, test changes ...) because I would run out
of hours in CI if I did that. In the past codecov has been fine with that.

This has broken all of the diff/patch reports since then. Without these
reports, codecov is pretty much useless as a tool to find missing coverage
and improve it.

[thomasrockhu-codecov]

@rouilj, if you don't upload coverage on every commit, this would likely be a broken path. I suggest looking into carryforward flags

[manmartgarc]

Is there a particular reason there' no reference to this in the Error Reference page?

[rouilj]

@thomasrockhu-codecov:

@rouilj, if you don't upload coverage on every commit, this would likely be a broken path.
I suggest looking into carryforward flags

I don't run CI on every commit, but every commit runs the full test suite with coverage for every executable file.

I just took a look at carryforward flags. From my read it seems to handle a different issue.
From the docs it seems to handle the case of a monorepo with different products.
Committing on one product only uploads code coverage for that one product. So the
codecov report is "incomplete" when viewed over the whole monorepo since you would
have a codecov report that omit a bunch of files. carryforward inherits the
codecov info for the missing files from earlier codecov reports. (Which I assume still has to
trace back along the github commit reference chain to find all of the codecov reports.)

In my case, there are no "incomplete" codecov reports. Every report that is uploaded is a full
report over all (reportable) files in the repo. Doc changes, workflow file changes etc. would
not be covered.

[rouilj]

Is there a particular reason there' no reference to this in the Error Reference page?

I assume you mean carryforward flags are missing?

[rouilj]

Looks like I have a patch coverage report now after the problem commits.
The problem commits are still a problem, but I can live without them.

Thanks if somebody fixed this manually. If it wasn't a fix, here's hoping codecov
will usefully process my future commits.