Can a Jupyter notebook programmatically halt itself?

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Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 8, 2016, 2:43:01 PM11/8/16
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Can a Jupyter notebook programmatically halt itself, such that it no longer appears in the "Running" tab?

At the end of a notebook "Run All", I would like the last notebook cell to contain code, and for that code to trigger the equivalent of:
  • the "Running tab > Shutdown notebook" action
  • ...or, failing that, the "Close and Halt" menu item
  • ...or, failing that, the "Kernel > Interrupt" menu item
Can this be done with javascript, or with %magic, or something else?

I am running the Docker image Jupyer Datascience Notebook, not JupyterHub.

I have tried to review related information, but none of these answered my question:

In certain use cases, idle notebook cruft is a huge problem. Information isn't exposed that makes identifying an idle notebook easier, and tools for culling notebooks are still wishlist items -- the consensus is it is hard to define idle, and hard to intervene with the browser in certain ways (e.g. event-on-tab-close).

I'm trying to cut the gordian knot by having a run-all notebook explicitly declare the notebook is halted / interrupted / done / closed as its last act. This seems like it should be possible, as it is a consequence of a user action (Run).

Is it possible? Or are there other ways of accomplishing this?


Thomas Kluyver

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Nov 9, 2016, 11:20:33 AM11/9/16
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I don't think there's a great way to do exactly that. If you want to run notebooks unsupervised, you can do so in a headless fashion with 'jupyter nbconvert --execute', which will start a kernel, run the notebook and stop the kernel again.

We are planning to expose more information so you can see how long a notebook has been idle.

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Peter Parente

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Nov 9, 2016, 11:22:53 AM11/9/16
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Hi Jeremy,

For a Python kernel, try this in the last cell:

%%javascript
Jupyter.notebook.session.delete();

It's borrowed from https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/blob/master/notebook/static/notebook/js/menubar.js#L225. The additional close_window logic in the notebook code probably won't work in the cell because the action is not directly triggered by a user click.

Cheers,
Pete

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 9, 2016, 11:25:30 AM11/9/16
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Thank you, Thomas.

So, even in theory, the JavaScript that fires on the Close & Halt button could not be called by injecting %%javascript ?


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Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 9, 2016, 11:26:37 AM11/9/16
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Thank you Peter! I will try and report back.
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Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 10, 2016, 2:57:13 PM11/10/16
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Thank you again for advice on this.

I am now able to programmatically halt notebooks -- this is really helpful for our multiuser workflow environment.

I created a test notebook (attached).

-  On "Run All" the final %%javascript cell "Jupyter.notebook.session.delete();" correctly stops the notebook.
-  The notebook interface shows "No Kernel", the Running tab no longer lists the notebook.
-  The previous cell still incorrectly shows a running status [ * ], however the output has returned.

Restart the notebook with:

-  Menu > Kernel > Restart ... "Dead Kernel" warning > Try restarting now
-  ...or refresh the browser tab.

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 10, 2016, 2:58:58 PM11/10/16
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Attaching the test notebook here.
shutdown-test.ipynb

Peter Parente

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Nov 10, 2016, 4:21:38 PM11/10/16
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Thanks for writing back letting others know it worked, Jeremy!

Pete

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 13, 2016, 12:47:24 PM11/13/16
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I have a follow-up question.

Now that we are successfully halting notebooks when they finish running. The "No Kernel" message is subtle; in order to better inform users that their notebook is halted (and should either be closed or restarted) I am using a modal popup as per "Dialog popup in Jupyter notebook" (http://stefaanlippens.net/jupyter-notebook-dialog.html) that says "NOTEBOOK HALTED" and offers a "Restart Kernel" button.

Currently, the %%javascript cell successfully halts the notebook and displays the popup.

I would like to have the dialog button trigger a kernel restart with Jupyter.notebook.session.restart(). That command works fine in a %%javascript cell on its own and correctly restarts the kernel. However, adding that command to the dialog button does nothing. I am not a Javascript programmer, and may be making a very basic error. Any suggestions?

This is the cell at the end of a notebook that halts the kernel and displays the restart dialog:

%%javascript
require(
    ["base/js/dialog"], 
    function(dialog) {
        dialog.modal({
                title: 'Notebook halted!',
                body: 'This notebook is no longer running; the kernel has been halted. To continue working, restart the kernel.',
                buttons: {
                    'Kernel restart': { function(){Jupyter.notebook.session.restart();} }
                }
        });
    }
);
Jupyter.notebook.session.delete();

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 15, 2016, 5:03:36 PM11/15/16
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Still trying to get the Jupyter modal dialog to execute a Jupyter.notebook.session.restart() -- if that is possible.

I believe I found the modal dialog:
...however github linked API is missing.

Thomas Kluyver

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Nov 15, 2016, 6:16:03 PM11/15/16
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Are you using Jupyterlab or the existing notebook? Those APIs are all part of Jupyterlab (the in-development new notebook interface). The existing interface has modal dialogs built with jquery and bootstrap, I think:

https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/blob/master/notebook/static/base/js/dialog.js

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 15, 2016, 9:11:59 PM11/15/16
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Ah -- I am using the regular notebook, not jupyterlab, so it looks like I was looking in the wrong place. Thank you for the link -- that looks really promising:

Jeremy Douglass

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Nov 15, 2016, 9:17:08 PM11/15/16
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Well, that fixed it; I was just missing the "click" method keyword.

For anyone who finds it helpful, here it is:


Notebook Halt / Restart cell
 
When included at the bottom of a notebook, it will stop the notebook at the end of Run All, and pop up a modal dialog letting the user know that the notebook was auto-stopped at the end of the run. The dialog offers a "Kernel Restart" button which restarts the notebook.


%%javascript
require(
    ["base/js/dialog"],
    function(dialog) {
        dialog.modal({

                title: 'Notebook Halted',
                body: 'This notebook is no longer running; the kernel has been halted. Close the browser tab, or, to continue working, restart the kernel.',
                buttons: {
                    'Kernel restart': { click: function(){ Jupyter.notebook.session.restart(); } }
                }
        });
    }
);
Jupyter.notebook.session.delete();
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