New builds crashing at conda environment.yml install phase

[chrisjsewell]

Details

• Read the Docs project URL: https://ipypublish.readthedocs.io
• Build URL (if applicable): https://readthedocs.org/projects/ipypublish/builds/?page=1
• Read the Docs username (if applicable): cjsewell

Expected Result

Successful install of Conda dependencies from environment.yaml

Actual Result

All builds from the last few days fail with:

[rtd-command-info] start-time: 2019-02-28T02:27:14.102739Z, end-time: 2019-02-28T02:29:38.601383Z, duration: 144, exit-code: 247
conda env create --quiet --name latest --file /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/ipypublish/checkouts/latest/docs/environment.yaml
Solving environment: ...working...

There has been on change in the conda dependencies from the last successful build,
so I assume something has changed on the conda/rtd end?

From this related issues #5098, it looks like I may need to ask you to increase the memory limit?

[stsewd]

Looks like a missing dependency

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'matplotlib'

[chrisjsewell]

@stsewd thanks for the quick reply.

That is only in the most recent Build #8690163 (just created),
where I try using system_packages: true for the matplotlib and pandas dependencies.
Am I writing the configuration file wrong?

version: 2

conda:
  environment: docs/environment.yaml

python:
  version: 3.6
  install:
    - method: pip
      path: .
  system_packages: true

[stsewd]

Maybe they are interfering from the packages in the docker image, can you remove the system_packages option (default is false and looks like you don't need that option)?

[chrisjsewell]

ok fixed by moving all but the non-python (pandoc) dependency to an extras_requirement:

.readthedocs.yml:

version: 2

conda:
  environment: docs/environment.yaml

python:
  version: 3.6
  install:
    - method: pip
      path: .
      extra_requirements:
          - rtd

docs/environment.yaml:

channels:
  - conda-forge
dependencies:
  - python =3.6
  - pandoc

Two things I noted are:

1. Despite setting the python version in the .readthedocs.yml,
   it still builds a python 3.7 environment, unless I set python in the environment.yaml
   (see Build #8690221)
2. In Build #8690254,
   I again tried to use system_packages: true (instead of pip installing matplotlib),
   but again, it did not find it. Perhaps that mechanism is broken?

[chrisjsewell]

and obviously, in the future, it might cut down on issues like this being raised, if there was a better error message. But I'll leave that up to you guys :) Cheers

[stsewd]

Despite setting the python version in the .readthedocs.yml,
it still builds a python 3.7 environment, unless I set python in the environment.yaml
(see Build #8690221)

Conda is in charge of managing the python version when using conda. We can add a note about this in the docs.

In Build #8690254,
I again tried to use system_packages: true (instead of pip installing matplotlib),
but again, it did not find it. Perhaps that mechanism is broken?

oh, now I get it, that option only works for no-conda projects, because we use that option when we create the virtual environment, the environment creation is delegated to conda when the user uses conda.

[chrisjsewell]

the environment creation is delegated to conda

Ah, I see, no problem. Yeh just a few extra notes in the documentation would be good,
and a warning that RTD can't handle building too big conda environments

[chrisjsewell]

Actually I see now, there is already documentation to this effect: https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guides/build-using-too-many-resources.html#use-pip-when-possible,
I was just too lazy to read the full instructions lol. Maybe just add a seealso or extra warning here