Help Pane unable to render rich text on Arch Linux

[AchmadFathoni]

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

Help pane is always empty if Rich Text option is active. This is my first time installing spyder. The Plain Text is working fine. Similar to #8806

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Install spyder with conda create -n spyder-env spyder=5 numpy scipy pandas matplotlib sympy cython -c conda-forge
2. Activate conda environment and run spyder
3. Choose Rich Text option in hamburger menu at Help pane
4. Input numpy.array in object field
5. Hit enter

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Help pane just blink twice with white color(I use dark theme) and then nothing. Also when I open spyder, the helper pane is already empty. I saw the youtube tutorial and there is supposed to be some box titled Usage or something.

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.3.0
• Python version: 3.10.4
• Qt version: 5.12.9
• PyQt version: 5.12.3
• Operating System name/version: Linux 5.17.4-arch1-1

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0          :  1.4.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0               :  4.0.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0           :  2.0.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0          :  1.7.3 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111   :  20200713 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2          :  3.0.2 (OK)
IPython >=7.31.1;<8.0.0       :  7.32.0 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2;<0.19.0         :  0.18.1 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7               :  0.9.0 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0            :  4.4.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0              :  23.4.0 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0               :  6.5.0 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0              :  1.2.1 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0;<0.9.0          :  0.8.3 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0               :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4             :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                  :  5.9.0 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                :  2.11.2 (OK)
pylint >=2.5.0                :  2.13.5 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0           :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.4.1;<1.5.0          :  1.4.1 (OK)
pylsp_black >=1.2.0           :  1.2.1 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=3.0.2;<3.1.0     :  3.0.3 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.1.10            :  0.2.1 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.0.2             :  1.1.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.3.0;<5.4.0      :  5.3.0 (OK)
qtpy >=2.0.1                  :  2.0.1 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                 :  1.0.0 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0           :  62.1.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                :  4.5.0 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.3.0;<2.4.0 :  2.3.0 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0          :  4.2.2 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1           :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3             :  2.1.7 (OK)
xdg >=0.26                    :  0.27 (OK)
zmq >=17                      :  22.3.0 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                 :  0.29.28 (OK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0            :  3.5.1 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                   :  1.22.3 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                :  1.4.2 (OK)
scipy >=0.17.0                :  1.8.0 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                 :  1.10.1 (OK)

[ccordoba12]

Hey @AchmadFathoni, thanks for reporting. Could you upload a video or animated gif or the problem you're seeing? Thanks!

[AchmadFathoni]

out.mp4

[ccordoba12]

Thanks for the video @AchmadFathoni! Unfortunately, I can't reproduce your problem (I'm also using Linux and conda-forge).

Could you go to View > Panes > Online Help and upload a screenshot of how that pane looks like? Since that pane also uses a web widget to display its content, it'll give a hint of what can be happening in your case.

[AchmadFathoni]

2022-04-27.22-43-00.mp4

[AchmadFathoni]

@ccordoba12 I use Archlinux, what distro do you use?

[ccordoba12]

Thanks for the new video. As I Imagined, this is an issue with Qt's web widgets and not with the Help pane (Qt is the graphical toolkit used by Spyder).

I use Archlinux, what distro do you use?

I use Kubuntu 20.04. And I think the problem is related to that because probably Arch has newer libraries that are incompatible with those widgets.

For now I think there's nothing to do about it, but this could be fixed once a new version of Qt is released in conda-forge in a couple of weeks.

[rear1019]

I am not able to reproduce the error on Arch Linux with updated packages as of today and Spyder from current 5.x branch. You could try changing the preference Application => Advanced settings => Rendering engine.

• Qt version: 5.12.9
• PyQt version: 5.12.3

Most recent package versions as of today are 5.15.x on Arch Linux.

[AchmadFathoni]

I am not able to reproduce the error on Arch Linux with updated packages as of today and Spyder from current 5.x branch. You could try changing the preference Application => Advanced settings => Rendering engine.

• Qt version: 5.12.9
• PyQt version: 5.12.3

Most recent package versions as of today are 5.15.x on Arch Linux.

That is the Qt version from Spyder help windows which is different from Qt that installed on system-wide. I use conda virtual environment to install Spyder.

[AchmadFathoni]

Fixed in last dependency update

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0          :  1.4.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0               :  4.0.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0           :  2.0.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0          :  1.7.3 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111   :  20200713 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2          :  3.0.2 (OK)
IPython >=7.31.1;<8.0.0       :  7.33.0 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2;<0.19.0         :  0.18.1 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7               :  0.9.0 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0            :  4.5.1 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0              :  23.4.0 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0               :  6.5.0 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0              :  1.2.1 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0;<0.9.0          :  0.8.3 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0               :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4             :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                  :  5.9.0 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                :  2.12.0 (OK)
pylint >=2.5.0                :  2.13.9 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0           :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.4.1;<1.5.0          :  1.4.1 (OK)
pylsp_black >=1.2.0           :  1.2.1 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=3.0.2;<3.1.0     :  3.0.3 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.1.10            :  0.2.1 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.0.2             :  1.1.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.3.0;<5.4.0      :  5.3.0 (OK)
qtpy >=2.0.1                  :  2.1.0 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                 :  1.0.0 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0           :  62.3.1 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                :  4.5.0 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.3.0;<2.4.0 :  2.3.0 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0          :  4.2.2 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1           :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3             :  2.1.8 (OK)
xdg >=0.26                    :  0.27 (OK)
zmq >=17                      :  22.3.0 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                 :  0.29.28 (OK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0            :  3.5.1 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                   :  1.22.3 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                :  1.4.2 (OK)
scipy >=0.17.0                :  1.8.0 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                 :  1.10.1 (OK)