Bug: Repeated python3 setup.py install leads to errors at startup, service loading

[relativisticelectron]

Steps to reproduce

When running

pip install -e .  && python3 setup.py install 

for the first time the python folder python3.10/site-packages/ contains

and python3.10/site-packages/cryptoadvance/specterext/ contains

However running

pip install -e .  && python3 setup.py install 

again , now

• python3.10/site-packages/cryptoadvance/specterext/ contains
  
  which then raises the exception at specter start;

cryptoadvance.specter.specter_error.SpecterError: 
                Module cryptoadvance.specterext.liquidissuer.service  could not be found. This could have these reasons:

• python3.10/site-packages/ remains contains the same folders.

Cause

Running pip install -e . for the 2. time completely deletes the python3.10/site-packages/cryptoadvance folder (without noticing that it deleted the folders of some of the required packages).

Workaround

Currently I have to do pip uninstall of all services in python3.10/site-packages/cryptoadvance/specterext/ and rerun pip install -e . && python3 setup.py install .

Solutions?

• The services specterext-exfund, specterext-faucet, cryptoadvance-liquidissuer should NOT be located in cryptoadvance/specterext/

@k9ert: What do you think?

[k9ert]

Tested it (with python3.9) and can't reproduce.

This might be due to at least one of the extensions (or specter itself) having a __init__.py file in ./src/cryptoadvance, or ./src/cryptoadvance/specterext/. That should not be the case. The reason is an explicit design-decision i did back in #524 : cryptoadvance and later cryptoadvance/specterext should be namespace-packages exactly in order to make it possible to "merge" specifc subtrees together in one virtualenv. For that to work, the corresponding directory needs to be empty.

Can you check that in your case? I guess i recently discovered something similiar and removed it but can't remember where.
And sorry for the late reply.

[k9ert]

Not sure why i couldn't reproduce in the first place but now i can :-|

[k9ert]

I think that python3 setup.py install was never ok in the first place. IMHO it's installing specter-desktop as a regular package. If then, the second time, pip install -e . is realizing that the package is installed regulary and removes it (unfortunately not properly).
We have to revisit why we're installing it in the first place.

[relativisticelectron]

We have to revisit why we're installing it in the first place.

Well, I am re-installing it after I changed something (and do not want to setup a completely new virtualenv every time):

specter-desktop/docs/development.md

Line 98 in a739a06

pip3 install -e .

[relativisticelectron]

@k9ert : Do you have any idea for a solution? This is an annoying bug in development (and I expect also users using pip will encounter this).

[relativisticelectron]

My current understanding:
pip3 install -e . (or pip3 install . ) installs

• cryptoadvance.specter
• and dependencies like cryptoadvance-liquidissuer

python3 setup.py install then overwrites cryptoadvance.specter.

Calling pip3 install -e . again then notices that cryptoadvance.specter was modified, and then just deletes the whole folder, while not reinstalling the dependencies.

This leads to the following steps that seems to work:

1. pip install --require-hashes -r requirements.txt
2. python3 setup.py install

These 2 steps can be repeated without problem.