Sphinx build fails

[florian-huber]

We suddenly get an documentation build error:
Extension error: Handler <function _process_docstring at 0x7fd1db87b0e0> for event 'autodoc-process-docstring' threw an exception (exception: module, class, method, function, traceback, frame, or code object was expected, got CPUDispatcher) Makefile:20: recipe for target 'coverage' failed make: *** [coverage] Error 2

[florian-huber]

Seems related to this: numpy/numpydoc#268 ?

[florian-huber]

Seems to come from recent sphinx change from sphinx 3.1.2 to sphinx 3.2.0.

[florian-huber]

Fixed by setting sphinx<3.2.0 in PR #117 .
Should be checked again in some time to see if sphinx >3.2.0 would also work.

[sverhoeven]

I think it is sphinx-doc/sphinx#8074

[florian-huber]

I am still a bit confused here: Why is the readthedocs build failing while the tests using sphinx 3.2.0 all pass?

[sverhoeven]

I enabled harmonize_docstrings branch in https://readthedocs.org/projects/matchms/versions/, its build installs our conda/environent-dev.yml and then installs the latest sphinx with conda install --yes --quiet --name harmonize_docstrings mock pillow sphinx sphinx_rtd_theme which causes 3.2.0 to be installed.

[sverhoeven]

Readthedocs build is green, as it is using Sphinx v3.2.1

[florian-huber]

Nice!
In principle we can close this now. Should we also change the version in environment-dev.yml, from sphinx>=3.0.0,<3.2.0 to sphinx>3.2.0 ?

[sverhoeven]

Yes lets update conda env file. We could also use sphinx>=3.0.0,!=3.2.0,<4.0.0, so we keep the lowest version, but exclude the bad version (3.2.0) and dont get burned by a new incompatible major version.