Building docs seems to fail randomly

[uweschmitt]

Details

• Project URL: http://datapool.readthedocs.org
• Build URLs (if applicable): https://readthedocs.org/projects/datapool/builds/4443902/ and https://readthedocs.org/projects/datapool/builds/4443941/
• Read the Docs username (if applicable): uweschmitt

Expected Result

Without changing any setup related files the build randomly fails. I see the following output from the first step which is either:

(build 4443941 which succeeds):

python3 -mvirtualenv --no-site-packages --no-download /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest/bin/python3
Not overwriting existing python script /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest/bin/python (you must use /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest/bin/python3)
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.

or from the failing build 4443902

python3 -mvirtualenv --no-site-packages --no-download /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest/bin/python3
Also creating executable in /home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/datapool/envs/latest/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.

The main difference is Not overwriting existing python script versus Also creating executable in. Which leads to a total different behaviour in the following steps.

[humitos]

pyzmq seems to be something that should be mocked since it's a C library dependency. Take a look at this error in this build https://readthedocs.org/projects/datapool/builds/4443902/

build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.4/scratch/vers.c:4:17: fatal error: zmq.h: No such file or directory

Here is an explanation about how to solve it: http://docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#i-get-import-errors-on-libraries-that-depend-on-c-modules

On the other hand, in this build https://readthedocs.org/projects/datapool/builds/4443941/ pyzmq was compiled without no problem (I don't know why really) and that's why your build has passed. So, the randomly situation is that in one of the build there was a missing C library dependency and in the following build it was there. Now, we need to know why that happened?

Anyway, the correct way of building your docs is by mocking the C libraries.

Finally, it seems that your last builds are working properly. @uweschmitt are you still having this problem?

[humitos]

I found that there is also a docs/requirements.txt that doesn't include that pyzmq and build the documentation on my local development instance correctly by using it and with python3.5

[uweschmitt]

Thanks for answering ! Currently I can live with the situation that the build fails from time to time and that I have to wait or retrigger a build. First I'll fix the docs/requirements.txt and see what happens. I leave it up to you to close this issue and/or to dig deeper into the cause of this random behaviour.

[humitos]

I'm marking this as Needed: more information to see if we can get some servers log or get a clue regarding the C library missing and then appeared.

[uweschmitt]

What makes me curios is the "Not overwriting existing python script" vs "Also creating executable" in the outputs I pasted above. This happens before zmq is required...

[agjohnson]

Builds look more stable now on this project, and we haven't collected any build information. Closing this but feel free to reopen if there is anything we should look at.