[Python-modules-team] Bug#854496: python-qtpy: FTBFS randomly (failing tests)

[Ghislain Vaillant]

On Sat, 2017-03-11 at 21:47 +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 08:17:18AM +0000, Ghislain Vaillant wrote:
> 
> > A (potential) fix for this would be to try out testing with pytest-xvfb
> > (which I have recently packaged, so only in unstable for now), instead of
> > calling xvfb-run manually.
> > 
> > pytest-xvfb is supposed to provide a more robust setup for tests requiring
> > xvfb. I have had successful results with packages such as
> > src:spyder-unittest. After the freeze (since pytest-xvfb will not be
> > available in Stretch), I intend to switch both src:python-qtpy and
> > src:python-qtawesome to using pytest-xvfb for testing.
> > 
> > We'll see whether this addresses the problem you reported. Are you happy
> > with this plan?
> 
> It depends. This is a FTBFS problem, so it should be fixed in stretch.

I agree.

> So, before trying what you describe I would ask Release Managers if
> they would allow pytest-xvfb in stretch as a way to fix this bug.

Keep in mind this is only an hypothesis. It might be worth confirming
that using pytest-xvfb effectively solves the problem before requesting
an unblock.

Another issue is that pytest-xvfb being a new Python package, it has
only been packaged for Python 3. So, we would have to either drop
testing for Python 2 or introduce a Python 2 binary package for pytest-
xvfb.

> BTW: The ri-li package used to fail 95% of the time in my autobuilders
> and also "often" in reproducible builds autobuilders. Somebody found
> a way to make this failure rate to decrease dramatically, maybe
> it may give you a hint.

Could you point me to the specific commit or portion of the discussion
where the fix is described, please? I'd be happy to prepare a debdiff
for you to apply to check whether this fix you mention works with
src:python-qtpy.

Cheers,
Ghis