Question

The following lines cause with ipython a crash as soon as I close the tk-window instance a.

import visual, Tkinter a = Tkinter.Tk() a.update() display = visual.display(title = 'Hallo') display.exit = 0 visual.sphere() 

If I close the visual display first, the entire terminal crashes. I run everything on kubuntu 8.10. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong? If this is a bug: Is there a smart way to avoid it?

Cheers, Philipp

Answer 1

Have you tried starting ipython with the -gthread -tk command-line switches?

From ipython --help:

        -gthread, -qthread, -q4thread, -wthread, -pylab                Only ONE of these can be given, and it can only be given as the               first option passed to IPython (it will have no effect in any               other position).  They provide threading support for the GTK, QT               and WXWidgets toolkits, and for the matplotlib library.                With any of the first four options, IPython starts running a               separate thread for the graphical toolkit's operation, so that               you can open and control graphical elements from within an               IPython command line, without blocking.  All four provide               essentially the same functionality, respectively for GTK, QT3,               QT4 and WXWidgets (via their Python interfaces).                Note that with -wthread, you can additionally use the -wxversion               option to request a specific version of wx to be used.  This               requires that you have the 'wxversion' Python module installed,               which is part of recent wxPython distributions.                If -pylab is given, IPython loads special support for the mat-               plotlib library (http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net), allowing               interactive usage of any of its backends as defined in the               user's .matplotlibrc file.  It automatically activates GTK, QT               or WX threading for IPyhton if the choice of matplotlib backend               requires it.  It also modifies the %run command to correctly               execute (without blocking) any matplotlib-based script which               calls show() at the end.         -tk    The -g/q/q4/wthread options, and -pylab (if matplotlib is               configured to use GTK, QT or WX), will normally block Tk               graphical interfaces.  This means that when GTK, QT or WX               threading is active, any attempt to open a Tk GUI will result in               a dead window, and possibly cause the Python interpreter to               crash.  An extra option, -tk, is available to address this               issue.  It can ONLY be given as a SECOND option after any of the               above (-gthread, -qthread, q4thread, -wthread or -pylab).                If -tk is given, IPython will try to coordinate Tk threading               with GTK, QT or WX.  This is however potentially unreliable, and               you will have to test on your platform and Python configuration               to determine whether it works for you.  Debian users have               reported success, apparently due to the fact that Debian builds               all of Tcl, Tk, Tkinter and Python with pthreads support.  Under               other Linux environments (such as Fedora Core 2/3), this option               has caused random crashes and lockups of the Python interpreter.               Under other operating systems (Mac OSX and Windows), you'll need               to try it to find out, since currently no user reports are               available.                There is unfortunately no way for IPython to determine  at  run-               time  whether -tk will work reliably or not, so you will need to               do some experiments before relying on it for regular work.