Python: Getting a traceback from a multiprocessing.Process

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 of 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_raise() in the main process will do the work.

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.