aci_contract: No JSON object could be decoded error

[aciguru]

SUMMARY

ISSUE TYPE
Informational

COMPONENT NAME
aci_contract

ANSIBLE VERSION
Observed in Ansible 2.5.1, 2.5.2 and 2.5.3, with Ansible Tower 3.2.4.

CONFIGURATION
DEFAULT_LOOKUP_PLUGIN_PATH(/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg) = [u'/usr/share/ansible/plu
DEFAULT_MODULE_PATH(/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg) = [u'/usr/share/ansible']

OS / ENVIRONMENT
N/A

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
Following APIC upgrade to Version: 3.1(2o), the ACI playbook demonstrated (https://youtu.be/Fs8STriMqTM?t=8m24s) began to intermittently fail when when adding contracts to the APIC. Running the same playbook against an APIC simulator on 3.0(1k) has not encountered errors, using the same playbook and the same instance of Ansible Tower. Only the target APIC was changed.

Enabling debug level 3 (-vvv) appears to reduce or eliminate the frequency of the problem, suggesting it may be load or timing related. I suspect the fault is with the APIC controller on release 3.1(2o). This is an informational issue only.

    - name: Add (or delete) the contract
      aci_contract:
        hostname: '{{ inventory_hostname }}'
        username: '{{ apic.username }}'
        password: '{{ apic.password }}'
        validate_certs: '{{ validate_certs }}'
        state: '{{ desired_state }}'
        #
        contract: '{{ item.contract_name }}'
        description: '{{ item.contract_descr }}'
        tenant: '{{ tenant }}'
        scope: '{{ scope }}'  
      with_items: '{{ tpe }}'
      tags: contract

EXPECTED RESULTS
The contract would be added to the APIC.

ACTUAL RESULTS

{
    "changed": false,
    "error": {
        "code": -1,
        "text": "Unable to parse output as JSON, see 'raw' output. No JSON object could be decoded"
    }
}
failed: [aci-demo.sandbox.wwtatc.local] (item={u'contract_name': u'QA_Bling_Enterprise-to-Prod_Qualys', u'dst_port_start': u'4445', u'dst_port_end': u'4445', u'ip_protocol': u'tcp', u'contract_subject_name': u'sub-QA_Bling_Enterprise-to-Prod_Qualys', u'contract_descr': u'WorkOrder6756', u'entry_name': u'tcp-port_4445', u'filter_name': u'tcp-4445', u'contract_subject_descr': u'WorkOrder6756', u'filter_descr': u'WorkOrder6756', u'filter_entry_descr': u'ent_descr', u'ether_type': u'ip'}) => {
    "changed": false,
    "error": {
        "code": -1,
        "text": "Unable to parse output as JSON, see 'raw' output. No JSON object could be decoded"
    },
    "item": {
        "contract_descr": "WorkOrder6756",
        "contract_name": "QA_Bling_Enterprise-to-Prod_Qualys",
        "contract_subject_descr": "WorkOrder6756",
        "contract_subject_name": "sub-QA_Bling_Enterprise-to-Prod_Qualys",
        "dst_port_end": "4445",
        "dst_port_start": "4445",
        "entry_name": "tcp-port_4445",
        "ether_type": "ip",
        "filter_descr": "WorkOrder6756",
        "filter_entry_descr": "ent_descr",
-snip-
}

[aciguru]

ansible/ansible#40636

[lhercot]

This will be addressed as part of the connection plugin when we get to it #25