Improve error propagation machinery

Use the new custom error types throughout the actor and portal
primitives and set a few new rules:
- internal errors are any error not raised by an rpc task and are
  **not** forwarded to portals but instead are raised directly in
  the msg loop.
- portals always re-raise a "main task" error for every call to
  ``Portal.result()``.

tractor/__init__.py

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ from ._actor import (
 )
 from ._trionics import open_nursery
 from ._state import current_actor
-from ._portal import RemoteActorError
+from ._exceptions import RemoteActorError
 
 
 __all__ = [

tractor/_actor.py

@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ from async_generator import asynccontextmanager, aclosing
 
 from ._ipc import Channel, _connect_chan
 from .log import get_console_log, get_logger
+from ._exceptions import pack_error, InternalActorError
 from ._portal import (
     Portal,
     open_portal,
@@ -33,10 +34,6 @@ class ActorFailure(Exception):
     "General actor failure"
 
 
-class InternalActorError(RuntimeError):
-    "Actor primitive internals failure"
-
-
 async def _invoke(
     actor: 'Actor',
     cid: str,
@@ -49,6 +46,7 @@ async def _invoke(
     """
     sig = inspect.signature(func)
     treat_as_gen = False
+    cs = None
     if 'chan' in sig.parameters:
         assert 'cid' in sig.parameters, \
             f"{func} must accept a `cid` (caller id) kwarg"
@@ -122,10 +120,16 @@ async def _invoke(
                     with trio.open_cancel_scope() as cs:
                         task_status.started(cs)
                         await chan.send({'return': await coro, 'cid': cid})
-    except Exception:
+    except Exception as err:
         # always ship errors back to caller
         log.exception("Actor errored:")
-        await chan.send({'error': traceback.format_exc(), 'cid': cid})
+        err_msg = pack_error(err)
+        err_msg['cid'] = cid
+        await chan.send(err_msg)
+
+        if cs is None:
+            # error is from above code not from rpc invocation
+            task_status.started(err)
     finally:
         # RPC task bookeeping
         tasks = actor._rpc_tasks.get(chan, None)
@@ -348,13 +352,19 @@ class Actor:
                 try:
                     ns, funcname, kwargs, actorid, cid = msg['cmd']
                 except KeyError:
-                    # push any non-rpc-response error to all local consumers
+                    # This is the non-rpc error case, that is, an
-                    # and mark the channel as errored
+                    # error **not** raised inside a call to ``_invoke()``
-                    chan._exc = err = msg['error']
+                    # (i.e. no cid was provided in the msg - see above).
+                    # Push this error to all local channel consumers
+                    # (normally portals) by marking the channel as errored
+                    tb_str = msg.pop('tb_str')
                     assert chan.uid
-                    for cid in self._actors2calls[chan.uid]:
+                    exc = InternalActorError(
-                        await self._push_result(chan.uid, cid, msg)
+                        f"{self.channel.uid}\n" + tb_str,
-                    raise InternalActorError(f"{chan.uid}\n" + err)
+                        **msg,
+                    )
+                    chan._exc = exc
+                    raise exc
 
                 log.debug(
                     f"Processing request from {actorid}\n"
@@ -373,21 +383,29 @@ class Actor:
                 # never allow cancelling cancel requests (results in
                 # deadlock and other weird behaviour)
                 if func != self.cancel:
+                    if isinstance(cs, Exception):
+                        log.warn(f"Task for RPC func {func} failed with {cs}")
+                    else:
+                        # mark that we have ongoing rpc tasks
                         self._no_more_rpc_tasks.clear()
                         log.info(f"RPC func is {func}")
+                        # store cancel scope such that the rpc task can be
+                        # cancelled gracefully if requested
                         self._rpc_tasks.setdefault(chan, []).append((cs, func))
                 log.debug(
                     f"Waiting on next msg for {chan} from {chan.uid}")
-            else:  # channel disconnect
+            else:
+                # channel disconnect
                 log.debug(f"{chan} from {chan.uid} disconnected")
 
         except trio.ClosedResourceError:
             log.error(f"{chan} form {chan.uid} broke")
-        except Exception:
+        except Exception as err:
-            # ship exception (from above code) to parent
+            # ship any "internal" exception (i.e. one from internal machinery
+            # not from an rpc task) to parent
             log.exception("Actor errored:")
             if self._parent_chan:
-                await self._parent_chan.send({'error': traceback.format_exc()})
+                await self._parent_chan.send(pack_error(err))
             raise
             # if this is the `MainProcess` we expect the error broadcasting
             # above to trigger an error at consuming portal "checkpoints"
@@ -480,24 +498,29 @@ class Actor:
 
             # blocks here as expected until the channel server is
             # killed (i.e. this actor is cancelled or signalled by the parent)
-        except Exception:
+        except Exception as err:
+            if not registered_with_arbiter:
+                log.exception(
+                    f"Actor errored and failed to register with arbiter "
+                    f"@ {arbiter_addr}")
+
             if self._parent_chan:
                 try:
+                    # internal error so ship to parent without cid
                     await self._parent_chan.send(
-                        {'error': traceback.format_exc()})
+                        pack_error(err))
                 except trio.ClosedResourceError:
                     log.error(
                         f"Failed to ship error to parent "
                         f"{self._parent_chan.uid}, channel was closed")
                     log.exception("Actor errored:")
-
-            if not registered_with_arbiter:
-                log.exception(
-                    f"Actor errored and failed to register with arbiter "
-                    f"@ {arbiter_addr}")
             else:
+                # XXX wait, why?
+                # causes a hang if I always raise..
                 raise
+
         finally:
+            if registered_with_arbiter:
                 await self._do_unreg(arbiter_addr)
             # terminate actor once all it's peers (actors that connected
             # to it as clients) have disappeared

tractor/_portal.py

@@ -12,15 +12,12 @@ from async_generator import asynccontextmanager
 from ._state import current_actor
 from ._ipc import Channel
 from .log import get_logger
+from ._exceptions import unpack_error, NoResult, RemoteActorError
 
 
 log = get_logger('tractor')
 
 
-class RemoteActorError(RuntimeError):
-    "Remote actor exception bundled locally"
-
-
 @asynccontextmanager
 async def maybe_open_nursery(nursery: trio._core._run.Nursery = None):
     """Create a new nursery if None provided.
@@ -64,7 +61,7 @@ class Portal:
         # it is expected that ``result()`` will be awaited at some point
         # during the portal's lifetime
         self._result = None
-        self._exc: Optional[RemoteActorError] = None
+        # set when _submit_for_result is called
         self._expect_result: Optional[
             Tuple[str, Any, str, Dict[str, Any]]
         ] = None
@@ -97,8 +94,7 @@ class Portal:
         elif functype == 'asyncgen':
             resp_type = 'yield'
         elif 'error' in first_msg:
-            raise RemoteActorError(
+            raise unpack_error(first_msg, self.channel)
-                f"{self.channel.uid}\n" + first_msg['error'])
         else:
             raise ValueError(f"{first_msg} is an invalid response packet?")
 
@@ -110,10 +106,11 @@ class Portal:
         self._expect_result = await self._submit(ns, func, **kwargs)
 
     async def run(self, ns: str, func: str, **kwargs) -> Any:
-        """Submit a function to be scheduled and run by actor, wrap and return
+        """Submit a remote function to be scheduled and run by actor,
-        its (stream of) result(s).
+        wrap and return its (stream of) result(s).
 
-        This is a blocking call.
+        This is a blocking call and returns either a value from the
+        remote rpc task or a local async generator instance.
         """
         return await self._return_from_resptype(
             *(await self._submit(ns, func, **kwargs))
@@ -137,14 +134,19 @@ class Portal:
                             if 'stop' in msg:
                                 break  # far end async gen terminated
                             else:
-                                raise RemoteActorError(
+                                # internal error should never get here
-                                    f"{self.channel.uid}\n" + msg['error'])
+                                assert msg.get('cid'), (
+                                    "Received internal error at portal?")
+                                raise unpack_error(msg, self.channel)
+
                 except StopAsyncIteration:
                     log.debug(
                         f"Cancelling async gen call {cid} to "
                         f"{self.channel.uid}")
                     raise
 
+            # TODO: use AsyncExitStack to aclose() all agens
+            # on teardown
             return yield_from_q()
 
         elif resptype == 'return':
@@ -152,30 +154,43 @@ class Portal:
             try:
                 return msg['return']
             except KeyError:
-                self._exc = RemoteActorError(
+                # internal error should never get here
-                    f"{self.channel.uid}\n" + msg['error'])
+                assert msg.get('cid'), "Received internal error at portal?"
-                raise self._exc
+                raise unpack_error(msg, self.channel)
         else:
             raise ValueError(f"Unknown msg response type: {first_msg}")
 
     async def result(self) -> Any:
         """Return the result(s) from the remote actor's "main" task.
         """
-        if self._expect_result is None:
+        # Check for non-rpc errors slapped on the
-            # (remote) errors are slapped on the channel
+        # channel for which we always raise
-            # teardown can reraise them
         exc = self.channel._exc
         if exc:
-                raise RemoteActorError(f"{self.channel.uid}\n{exc}")
+            raise exc
-            else:
-                raise RuntimeError(
-                    f"Portal for {self.channel.uid} is not expecting a final"
-                    "result?")
 
-        elif self._result is None:
+        # not expecting a "main" result
+        if self._expect_result is None:
+            log.warn(
+                f"Portal for {self.channel.uid} not expecting a final"
+                " result?\nresult() should only be called if subactor"
+                " was spawned with `ActorNursery.run_in_actor()`")
+            return NoResult
+
+        # expecting a "main" result
+        assert self._expect_result
+        if self._result is None:
+            try:
                 self._result = await self._return_from_resptype(
                     *self._expect_result
                 )
+            except RemoteActorError as err:
+                self._result = err
+
+        # re-raise error on every call
+        if isinstance(self._result, RemoteActorError):
+            raise self._result
+
         return self._result
 
     async def close(self) -> None: