gatsby-source-plugin localfile is always null unless doing a clean build

[j-Riv]

Hey, I am trying to get the gatsby-source-contentful plugin to use the cached contentful assets on incremental builds. If I run gatsby clean and then gatsby develop. Local images work as expected. If I kill the dev server and then run gatsby develop again, all local files are null. I don't understand the issue.

My plugins are as follows:

[
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-source-filesystem`,
      options: {
        name: `images`,
        path: `${__dirname}/src/images`,
      },
    },
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-source-shopify`,
      options: {
        storeUrl: process.env.GATSBY_STORE_MY_SHOPIFY,
        password: process.env.GATSBY_STORE_TOKEN,
        shopifyConnections: ["collections"],
        downloadImages: true,
        salesChannel: "Gatsby",
        prioritize: true,
      },
    },
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-source-contentful`,
      options: {
        spaceId: process.env.CONTENTFUL_SPACE_ID,
        accessToken:
          process.env.CONTENTFUL_ACCESS_TOKEN ||
          process.env.CONTENTFUL_DELIVERY_TOKEN,
        environment: "master",
        downloadLocal: true,
        assetDownloadWorkers: 5,
      },
    },
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-plugin-sharp`,
      options: {
        defaults: {
          formats: [`webp`, `auto`],
          quality: 40,
          placeholder: `dominantColor`,
        },
      },
    },
    `gatsby-transformer-sharp`
]

Package versions:

    "gatsby-plugin-image": "^3.14.0",
    "gatsby-plugin-sharp": "^5.14.0",
    "gatsby-source-contentful": "^8.15.0",
    "gatsby-source-filesystem": "^5.14.0",
    "gatsby-source-shopify": "^9.0.0",
    "gatsby-transformer-sharp": "^5.14.0",

What could be the issue? It seems really dumb to have to run clean before dev and build every time.

[VictorMoni]

Hi @j-Riv

When using gatsby-source-contentful with downloadLocal: true, the localFile field can become null after restarting gatsby develop without running gatsby clean.
This is caused by cache metadata in .cache/ not re-linking files properly in incremental builds.

Causes

• Cached localFile nodes not being re-linked on restart.
• Process interruption before cache metadata is written.
• Concurrency issues with assetDownloadWorkers.

Fixes & Workarounds

1. Upgrade plugins Update gatsby, gatsby-source-contentful, and related plugins to latest versions.
2. Conditional gatsby clean Use it only when asset links break.
3. Custom re-link in gatsby-node.js Use onPreBootstrap or onCreateNode to ensure localFile is re-attached.
4. Avoid parallel cache modifications Ensure only one process touches .cache/.

References

• Gatsby Incremental Builds
• gatsby-source-contentful Documentation
• Gatsby Cache API Docs

[j-Riv]

Yeah I think I tried updating all related packages and that didn't work for me, I tried messing with a few versions and ended up with these, this seems to work, never figured out what the real issue was, when I get some more time I'll try again. Thanks for the help.

"gatsby": "^5.14.0",
"gatsby-cli": "^5.14.0",
"gatsby-plugin-image": "3.0.0",
"gatsby-plugin-sharp": "5.0.0",
"gatsby-source-contentful": "8.0.0",
"gatsby-transformer-sharp": "5.0.0",