Can't precompile without a display

[GlenHertz]

I'm using remote VSCode to a remote ssh backend and trying to precompile ProfileView but it fails with:

Failed to precompile ProfileView [c46f51b8-102a-5cf2-8d2c-8597cb0e0da7] to "/home/glenhertz/.julia/compiled/v1.10/ProfileView/jl_Ay2Daz".
ERROR: LoadError: InitError: Cannot open display: 
Stacktrace:
  [1] error(s::String)
    @ Base ./error.jl:35
  [2] Gtk.GLib.GError(f::Gtk.var"#325#331")
    @ Gtk.GLib ~/.julia/packages/Gtk/oo3cW/src/GLib/gerror.jl:17
  [3] __init__()
    @ Gtk ~/.julia/packages/Gtk/oo3cW/src/Gtk.jl:142
  [4] register_restored_modules(sv::Core.SimpleVector, pkg::Base.PkgId, path::String)
    @ Base ./loading.jl:1074
  [5] _include_from_serialized(pkg::Base.PkgId, path::String, ocachepath::String, depmods::Vector{Any})
    @ Base ./loading.jl:1020
...

Should ProfileView compile when no display is available?

[timholy]

I've wondered about that. But how would you use it without a display?

[timholy]

Looking at the stacktrace, the error is thrown from Gtk's __init__ function. So simply having Gtk as a dependency and loading the module seems to cause this.

[AmarnathMurugan]

I've wondered about that. But how would you use it without a display?

I've SSHed into a cluster from VS Code to use Julia, and get the same error. It is because GTK is checking the number of displays only on the remote node instead of my local device.

[alex-s-gardner]

This is an issue for myself as well. When using VSCode remote desktop ssh'd into a headless server I'm unable to use ProfileView because of GTK .

[jwahlstrand]

I think I see a path to get precompiling to not fail (or at least fail silently) without a display, by allowing the call of gtk_init_check in Gtk4's __init__ function to fail, and then in ProfileView.jl (and other downstream packages) checking if initialization succeeded before trying to run Gtk4-related code. But if downstream packages didn't check for initialization they would probably crash during precompilation, and the added complexity might lead to other problems.

Even if precompilation didn't error out on a headless server, GTK-based code isn't going to work through ssh without setting up something like X forwarding. Unless I'm missing something? Can you use VSCode's built-in @profview, which is not based on GTK?

[alex-s-gardner]

VSCode's built-in @profview does indeed work for my use case.