Actor: don't hold key references on workers

distributed/actor.py

@@ -3,11 +3,11 @@
 import threading
 from queue import Queue
 
-from .client import Future, default_client
+from .client import Future
 from .protocol import to_serialize
 from .utils import iscoroutinefunction, sync, thread_state
 from .utils_comm import WrappedKey
-from .worker import get_worker
+from .worker import get_client, get_worker
 
 
 class Actor(WrappedKey):
@@ -59,12 +59,15 @@ def __init__(self, cls, address, key, worker=None):
             self._client = None
         else:
             try:
+                # TODO: `get_worker` may return the wrong worker instance for async local clusters (most tests)
+                # when run outside of a task (when deserializing a key pointing to an Actor, etc.)
                 self._worker = get_worker()
             except ValueError:
                 self._worker = None
             try:
-                self._client = default_client()
-                self._future = Future(key)
+                self._client = get_client()
+                self._future = Future(key, inform=self._worker is None)
+                # ^ When running on a worker, only hold a weak reference to the key, otherwise the key could become unreleasable.
             except ValueError:
                 self._client = None
 
@@ -109,7 +112,8 @@ def _sync(self, func, *args, **kwargs):
         if self._client:
             return self._client.sync(func, *args, **kwargs)
         else:
-            # TODO support sync operation by checking against thread ident of loop
+            if self._asynchronous:
+                return func(*args, **kwargs)
             return sync(self._worker.loop, func, *args, **kwargs)
 
     def __dir__(self):

distributed/tests/test_actor.py

@@ -564,6 +564,61 @@ async def wait(self):
     await c.gather(futures)
 
 
+@gen_cluster(client=True, client_kwargs=dict(set_as_default=False))
+# ^ NOTE: without `set_as_default=False`, `get_client()` within worker would return
+# the same client instance the test is using (because it's all one process).
+# Even with this, both workers will share the same client instance.
+async def test_worker_actor_handle_is_weakref(c, s, a, b):
+    counter = c.submit(Counter, actor=True, workers=[a.address])
+
+    await c.submit(lambda _: None, counter, workers=[b.address])
+
+    del counter
+
+    start = time()
+    while a.actors or b.data:
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.1)
+        assert time() < start + 30
+
+
+def test_worker_actor_handle_is_weakref_sync(client):
+    workers = list(client.run(lambda: None))
+    counter = client.submit(Counter, actor=True, workers=[workers[0]])
+
+    client.submit(lambda _: None, counter, workers=[workers[1]]).result()
+
+    del counter
+
+    def check(dask_worker):
+        return len(dask_worker.data) + len(dask_worker.actors)
+
+    start = time()
+    while any(client.run(check).values()):
+        sleep(0.01)
+        assert time() < start + 30
+
+
+def test_worker_actor_handle_is_weakref_from_compute_sync(client):
+    workers = list(client.run(lambda: None))
+
+    with dask.annotate(workers=workers[0]):
+        counter = dask.delayed(Counter)()
+    with dask.annotate(workers=workers[1]):
+        intermediate = dask.delayed(lambda c: None)(counter)
+    with dask.annotate(workers=workers[0]):
+        final = dask.delayed(lambda x, c: x)(intermediate, counter)
+
+    final.compute(actors=counter, optimize_graph=False)
+
+    def worker_tasks_running(dask_worker):
+        return len(dask_worker.data) + len(dask_worker.actors)
+
+    start = time()
+    while any(client.run(worker_tasks_running).values()):
+        sleep(0.01)
+        assert time() < start + 30
+
+
 def test_one_thread_deadlock():
     with cluster(nworkers=2) as (cl, w):
         client = Client(cl["address"])

distributed/worker.py

@@ -1412,7 +1412,7 @@ async def get_data(
                 if k in self.actors:
                     from .actor import Actor
 
-                    data[k] = Actor(type(self.actors[k]), self.address, k)
+                    data[k] = Actor(type(self.actors[k]), self.address, k, worker=self)
 
         msg = {"status": "OK", "data": {k: to_serialize(v) for k, v in data.items()}}
         nbytes = {k: self.tasks[k].nbytes for k in data if k in self.tasks}