GitHub Actions · artifacts and cache · Checked November 5, 2026

"This request has been automatically failed because it uses a deprecated version of actions/upload-artifact: v3" (or actions/cache: v2): the versions to move to, and the 409 conflict after

GitHub refuses these old versions on its side, so the job fails at the first step that uses one, before it does anything; the version tags themselves are still there. For the artifact actions, v3 has failed since January 30, 2025, and v1 and v2 since June 30, 2024 (GitHub's changelog). For actions/cache, v1, v2 and versions pinned below v3.4.0 or v4.2.0 fail since the old cache service was retired in February 2025 (the cache README). It still comes up whenever an old repository runs its CI again: about 70 GitHub issues and pull requests quoted the message between October 1 and November 5, 2026.

What it looks like

This request has been automatically failed because it uses a deprecated version of `actions/upload-artifact: v3`.

(didcomm-demo #80) The cache form names actions/cache: v2 (corrplot #293). The action does not have to be in your own file: actions/upload-pages-artifact v1 and v2 call upload-artifact v3 inside, so an old Pages workflow fails the same way (Pon-De-Ring-Pay2 #9). The "Set up job" step lists the actions the runner downloads, which shows the version that is actually used.

The versions to move to (November 5, 2026)

• actions/upload-artifact v3 or older: v4 or later works; the current major is v7 (v7.0.2).
• actions/download-artifact v3 or older: v4 or later; the current major is v8 (v8.0.2). Move the upload and download sides together: the v4 release notes say artifacts made with v3 and below are not compatible with the v4 actions.
• actions/cache v1 or v2: v4.2.0 or later; the current majors are v5 and v6 (v6.1.0). v5 and later run on Node.js 24 and need runner 2.327.1 or later on self-hosted runners.
• actions/upload-pages-artifact v1 or v2: v3 or later, the current one being v5 (v5.0.0), together with actions/deploy-pages v4 or later (v5.0.1).
• Not upload-artifact@v3.2.2 or download-artifact@v3.1.0. They came out on March 17, 2026 and run on Node.js 24, but their release notes say they are security backports for GitHub Enterprise Server and are deprecated on github.com. On GHES, where v4 and later are not supported, they are the versions to use.

What changes from v4 on

• Artifacts are immutable, so uploading the same name twice in a run fails:

  Failed to CreateArtifact: Failed request: (409) Conflict: an artifact with this name already exists on the workflow run

  (big-matches #49). In a matrix, put the matrix value in the name, such as name: results-${{ matrix.os }}, and download them with pattern: results-* and merge-multiple: true. overwrite: true replaces an artifact instead, with a new ID.
• Hidden files, those starting with . or inside a folder starting with ., are left out unless you set include-hidden-files: true.
• One job can create at most 500 artifacts.
• download-artifact reads the current run. For an artifact from another run, give it run-id and github-token.

Telling it apart

• "Unable to download artifact(s): Artifact not found for name": the download ran, but the name or run does not match ("Artifact not found for name").
• "Artifact storage quota has been hit": the account's storage, not the version (artifact storage quota).
• "Node.js 20 actions are deprecated" is a warning about the runtime of an action that still runs ("Node.js 20 actions are deprecated").

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