RuntimeError: This event loop is already running in python

Solution 1:

I got the issue resolved by using the nest_async

pip install nest-asyncio

and adding below lines in my file.

import nest_asyncio
nest_asyncio.apply()
__import__('IPython').embed()

Solution 2:

Event loop running - is an entry point of your async program. It manages running of all coroutines, tasks, callbacks. Running loop while it's running makes no sense: in some sort it's like trying to run job executor from same already running job executor.

Since you have this question, I guess you may misunderstand a way how asyncio works. Please, read this article - it's not big and gives a good introduction.

Upd:

There's absolutely no problem in adding multiple things to be ran by event loop while this loop is already running. You can do it just by awaiting for it:

await coro()  # add coro() to be run by event loop blocking flow here until coro() is finished

or creating a task:

# python 3.7+
asyncio.create_task(coro())  # add coro() to be run by event loop without blocking flow here

# This works in all Python versions but is less readable
asyncio.ensure_future(coro())

As you can see you don't need call event loop's methods to make something being ran by it.

Event loop's method such as run_forever or run_until_complete — are just a ways to start event loop in general.

run_until_complete(foo()) means: "add foo() to be ran by event loop and run event loop itself until foo() isn't done".

Solution 3:

Just add this bunch of code in the beginning

!pip install nest_asyncio
import nest_asyncio
nest_asyncio.apply()

Solution 4:

I'm writing this down not to patronize, but to explain how we can handle the situation where simply queueing async functions and awaiting their results synchronously while the event loop is running, doesn't work.

run_until_complete is not for running any number of arbitrary async functions synchronously, it is for running the main entry point of your entire async program. This constraint is not immediately apparent from the docs.

Since libraries like aiohttp will queue it's own entry point to run as a server and block the loop's synchronous operations using run_until_complete or run_forever, the event loop will already be running and you won't be able to run independent synchronous operations on that event loop and wait for it's result within that thread.

That being said, if you have to queue an async operation into a running event loop from within a sync context and get it's result like a regular function, that may not be possible. One way is to pass in a synchronous callback to be called once the async operation finishes. That will of course slow down your event loop. Another way is to put the result in a queue and wait for it in a synchronous loop, emulating the event loop.

Another way of handling the situation is to execute your code within startup and cleanup callbacks of the async http library you're using. Here's a sample of how you may accomplish this.

Solution 5:

Using nest_asyncio didn't work for me, because then aiohttp started complaining with

RuntimeError: Timeout context manager should be used inside a task

Instead I decided to replace all calls to asyncio.run with calls to this asyncio_run:

def asyncio_run(future, as_task=True):
    """
    A better implementation of `asyncio.run`.

    :param future: A future or task or call of an async method.
    :param as_task: Forces the future to be scheduled as task (needed for e.g. aiohttp).
    """

    try:
        loop = asyncio.get_running_loop()
    except RuntimeError:  # no event loop running:
        loop = asyncio.new_event_loop()
        return loop.run_until_complete(_to_task(future, as_task, loop))
    else:
        nest_asyncio.apply(loop)
        return asyncio.run(_to_task(future, as_task, loop))


def _to_task(future, as_task, loop):
    if not as_task or isinstance(future, Task):
        return future
    return loop.create_task(future)

A secondary goal was to be able to think of asyncio.run as promise.resolve from the JS world, or Task.Wait from the .NET world.

Edit: In our product we removed this code in favor of this other answer in a related question.