Python: Getting a traceback from a multiprocessing.Process

Question

I am trying to get hold of a traceback object from a multiprocessing.Process. Unfortunately passing the exception info through a pipe does not work because traceback objects can not be pickled:

def foo(pipe_to_parent):
    try:
        raise Exception('xxx')
    except:
        pipe_to_parent.send(sys.exc_info())

to_child, to_self = multiprocessing.Pipe()
process = multiprocessing.Process(target = foo, args = (to_self,))
process.start()
exc_info = to_child.recv()
process.join()
print traceback.format_exception(*exc_info)
to_child.close()
to_self.close()

Traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/multiprocessing/process.py", line 231, in _bootstrap
    self.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/multiprocessing/process.py", line 88, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "foo", line 7, in foo
    to_parent.send(sys.exc_info())
PicklingError: Can't pickle <type 'traceback'>: attribute lookup __builtin__.traceback failed

Is there another way to access the exception info? I'd like to avoid passing the formatted string.

Answer 1

Using tblib you can pass wrapped exceptions and reraise them later:

import tblib.pickling_support
tblib.pickling_support.install()

from multiprocessing import Pool
import sys


class ExceptionWrapper(object):

    def __init__(self, ee):
        self.ee = ee
        __,  __, self.tb = sys.exc_info()

    def re_raise(self):
        raise self.ee.with_traceback(self.tb)
        # for Python 2 replace the previous line by:
        # raise self.ee, None, self.tb


# example how to use ExceptionWrapper

def inverse(i):
    """will fail for i == 0"""
    try:
        return 1.0 / i
    except Exception as e:
        return ExceptionWrapper(e)


def main():
    p = Pool(1)
    results = p.map(inverse, [0, 1, 2, 3])
    for result in results:
        if isinstance(result, ExceptionWrapper):
            result.re_raise()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

So, if you catch an exception in your remote process, wrap it with ExceptionWrapper and then pass it back. Calling re_reraise in the main process will do the work.

Answer 2

Since multiprocessing does print the string contents of exceptions raised in child processes, you can wrap all your child process code in a try-except that catches any exceptions, formats the relavent stack traces, and raises a new Exception that holds all the relevant information in its string:

An example of a function I use with multiprocessing.map:

def run_functor(functor):
    """
    Given a no-argument functor, run it and return its result. We can 
    use this with multiprocessing.map and map it over a list of job 
    functors to do them.

    Handles getting more than multiprocessing's pitiful exception output
    """

    try:
        # This is where you do your actual work
        return functor()
    except:
        # Put all exception text into an exception and raise that
        raise Exception("".join(traceback.format_exception(*sys.exc_info())))

What you get is a stack trace with another formatted stack trace as the error message, which helps with debugging.

Answer 3

It seems to be difficult to made picklable the traceback object. But you can only send the 2 first items of sys.exc_info(), and a preformated traceback information with the traceback.extract_tb method :

import multiprocessing
import sys
import traceback

def foo(pipe_to_parent):
    try:
        raise Exception('xxx')
    except:
        except_type, except_class, tb = sys.exc_info()
        pipe_to_parent.send((except_type, except_class, traceback.extract_tb(tb)))

to_child, to_self = multiprocessing.Pipe()
process = multiprocessing.Process(target = foo, args = (to_self,))
process.start()
exc_info = to_child.recv()
process.join()
print exc_info
to_child.close()
to_self.close()

which give you :

(<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception('xxx',), [('test_tb.py', 7, 'foo', "raise Exception('xxx')")])

And then, you'll be able to grab more informations about the exception cause (filename, line number where exception raised, method name and the statement that raise the exception)

Answer 4

Python 3

In Python 3, now the get method of multiprocessing.pool.Async returns full traceback, see http://bugs.python.org/issue13831.

Python 2

Use the traceback.format_exc (which means formatted expetion) to get the traceback string. It would be much more covenient with making a decorator as below.

def full_traceback(func):
    import traceback, functools
    @functools.wraps(func)
    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
        try:
            return func(*args, **kwargs)
        except Exception as e:
            msg = "{}\n\nOriginal {}".format(e, traceback.format_exc())
            raise type(e)(msg)
    return wrapper

Example:

def func0():
    raise NameError("func0 exception")

def func1():
    return func0()

# Key is here!
@full_traceback
def main(i):
    return func1()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from multiprocessing import Pool
    pool = Pool(4)
    try:
        results = pool.map_async(main, range(5)).get(1e5)
    finally:
        pool.close()
        pool.join()

The traceback with the decorator:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bt.py", line 34, in <module>
    results = pool.map_async(main, range(5)).get(1e5)
  File "/opt/anaconda/lib/python2.7/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 567, in get
    raise self._value
NameError: Exception in func0

Original Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bt.py", line 13, in wrapper
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "bt.py", line 27, in main
    return func1()
  File "bt.py", line 23, in func1
    return func0()
  File "bt.py", line 20, in func0
    raise NameError("Exception in func0")
NameError: Exception in func0

The traceback without the decorator:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bt.py", line 34, in <module>
    results = pool.map_async(main, range(5)).get(1e5)
  File "/opt/anaconda/lib/python2.7/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 567, in get
    raise self._value
NameError: Exception in func0

Answer 5

This is a variation of this excellent answer. Both are relying on tblib for storing the traceback.

However, instead of having to return the exception object (as asked for by the OP), the worker function can be left as-is and is just wrapped in try/except to store exceptions for re-raise.

import tblib.pickling_support
tblib.pickling_support.install()

import sys

class DelayedException(Exception):

    def __init__(self, ee):
        self.ee = ee
        __,  __, self.tb = sys.exc_info()
        super(DelayedException, self).__init__(str(ee))

    def re_raise(self):
        raise self.ee, None, self.tb

Example

def worker():
    try:
        raise ValueError('Something went wrong.')
    except Exception as e:
        raise DelayedException(e)


if __name__ == '__main__':

    import multiprocessing

    pool = multiprocessing.Pool()
    try:
        pool.imap(worker, [1, 2, 3])
    except DelayedException as e:
        e.re_raise()