protoc-gen-bq-schema plugin seems to no longer work

Google Cloud Compute Infrastructure
1

Problem I have encountered:

I have described the problem fully in StackOverflow, because I didn’t realize that Google was now supporting this product. Here is a recap:

  • I used to be able to get the protoc-gen-bq-schema plugin to work properly by running protoc --bq-schema_out . -I <the/path/to/the/proto/package> <the/path/to/the/proto/file/to/generate/the/schema>
  • This no longer works, and gives me absolutely no feedback (no error messages, nothing). It simply returns the prompt without generating any output.
  • I have tested protoc-gen-bq-schema itself by running protoc-gen-bq-schema --help. This does generate the help table, so I know it is installed properly.
  • I have tested protoc itself by running something simpler, specifically protoc --python_out=. -I <the/path/to/the/proto/package> <the/path/to/the/proto/file/to/generate/the/python/file>. This works properly and fully as expected.

What I expected to happen:

I expect for a BigQuery schema to be generated, as it used to be generated. I also expect for any errors to be generated that can help me deduce what the problem might be.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Install protoc. I have libprotoc 27.2
  2. Install protoc-gen-bq-schema. It does not provide version output, but I just installed it the week of July 1, 2024, using the installation instructions provided on its GitHub page.
  3. Run a protoc command using the --bq-schema_out flag as shown above.

Other information (workarounds I have tried, documentation consulted, etc):

  • I recently got a new computer, changing from a Linux machine to a Mac. I thought maybe that was the problem, but my old machine was still around and hadn’t been wiped. It no longer worked on my old machine, either.
  • The last time I did get this to successfully work was a few months ago (maybe March of 2024).
  • The workaround for now is simply creating the schemas by hand. This is a very laborious workaround, but it’s what I have to do for now.
  • I am considering either forking the repo or simply writing a converter in Python.
  • I am not very savvy with Go.
  • I have consulted all of the documentation regarding the plugin, but there isn’t very much.
  • Unfortunately, the GitHub page has no “Issues” section, so I cannot publish this there, as would be more appropriate.