"Warning: The call to compilecache failed to create a usable precompiled cache file..." when sharing depot across Julia versions

[topolarity]

MWE:

$ JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=tmp_depot julia-15f34aa649 -e "using Pkg; Pkg.add(\"Distributions\")"
$ JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=tmp_depot julia-2cee483bce -e "using Pkg; Pkg.add(\"Distributions\")" --project=tmp_project 
...
┌ Distributions [31c24e10-a181-5473-b8eb-7969acd0382f]
│  ┌ Warning: The call to compilecache failed to create a usable precompiled cache file for StatsBase [2913bbd2-ae8a-5f71-8c99-4fb6c76f3a91]
│  │   exception = Required dependency Statistics [10745b16-79ce-11e8-11f9-7d13ad32a3b2] failed to load from a cache file.
│  └ @ Base loading.jl:1986
└

julia-15f34aa649 is a newer Julia v1.11 from after JuliaLang/julia#46501, while julia-2cee483bce is from before.

I was able to bypass the issue by (a) deleting the git-tree-sha1 entry in the Statistics entry of the Manifest, or (b) JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=tmp_depot julia-2cee483bce -e "using Pkg; Pkg.update()"

Neither of those should be necessary though. julia-2cee483bce is fully capable of loading either the old built-in Statistics (v1.9.0) or the new liberated version (v1.11.0)

[topolarity]

The challenging part of the user experience is that ] resolve and ] update both succeed and report no errors, despite the problem with the stacked Manifest:

$ JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=tmp_depot julia-2cee483bce --project=tmp_project
               _
   _       _ _(_)_     |  Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
  (_)     | (_) (_)    |
   _ _   _| |_  __ _   |  Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
  | | | | | | |/ _` |  |
  | | |_| | | | (_| |  |  Version 1.11.0-DEV.116 (2023-07-18)
 _/ |\__'_|_|_|\__'_|  |  Commit 2cee483bce (64 days old master)
|__/                   |

(tmp_project) pkg> resolve
  No Changes to `~/repos/DAECompiler.jl/tmp_project/Project.toml`
  No Changes to `~/repos/DAECompiler.jl/tmp_project/Manifest.toml`

(tmp_project) pkg> update
    Updating registry at `tmp_depot/registries/General.toml`
  No Changes to `~/repos/DAECompiler.jl/tmp_project/Project.toml`
  No Changes to `~/repos/DAECompiler.jl/tmp_project/Manifest.toml`
Precompiling project...
  ? Distributions
  3 dependencies successfully precompiled in 17 seconds. 36 already precompiled.
  1 dependency failed but may be precompilable after restarting julia
  2 dependencies had warnings during precompilation:
┌ Distributions [31c24e10-a181-5473-b8eb-7969acd0382f]
│  ┌ Warning: The call to compilecache failed to create a usable precompiled cache file for StatsBase [2913bbd2-ae8a-5f71-8c99-4fb6c76f3a91]
│  │   exception = Required dependency Statistics [10745b16-79ce-11e8-11f9-7d13ad32a3b2] failed to load from a cache file.
│  └ @ Base loading.jl:1986
└