NB execution can fail on ReadTheDocs

[mje-nz]

Describe the bug
All the matplotlib figures on https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io are not rendering, along with the examples of displaying pd.DataFrame and IPython.display.Math, and the whole "Widgets and interactive outputs" notebook.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/use/glue.html, https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/basic.html, or https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/interactive.html.
2. Observe the missing outputs.

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[chrisjsewell]

thanks @mje-nz, yes indeed some notebook executions are failing on RTD: https://readthedocs.org/projects/myst-nb/builds/11469995/
I've opened a PR above to look into fixing this #218

[chrisjsewell]

This may be part of the problem (https://github.com/executablebooks/MyST-NB/pull/218/checks?check_run_id=944445317):

----------------------------- Captured stdout call -----------------------------
## deleted test_complex_outputs_unrun.ipynb/cells/0/outputs/0:
-  output:
-    output_type: stream
-    name: stderr
-    text:
-      Matplotlib is building the font cache; this may take a moment.

[choldgraf]

done! also what's your RTD handle? I tried chrisjsewell but it said that didn't exist

[chrisjsewell]

done! also what's your RTD handle? I tried chrisjsewell but it said that didn't exist

I'm there as cjsewell, but it doesn't matter about me, the bot is our new ruler (when you have time, add him to all the EBP projects)

[chrisjsewell]

FYI I enabled some versions on RTD: The plots are there in https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/v0.8.3/use/hiding.html but missing in https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/v0.8.4/use/hiding.html

[choldgraf]

huh this is really weird, I haven't noticed any plots missing in the jupyter book docs, which I believe use the latest myst-nb? https://jupyterbook.org/interactive/hiding.html#hide-cell-inputs

[chrisjsewell]

I'm just updating jupyter-cache first (to use nbclient), then I'll give it another try

[chrisjsewell]

Err, I solved the main bug afeb1b0, but there is still this RTD specific problem: jupyter/nbclient#95

[choldgraf]

That's pretty weird... I wonder why rtd is behaving differently from the other ci/cd envs. Maybe a dependency they pre install or something?

[chrisjsewell]

Think I've found the difference: readthedocs/readthedocs.org#7360

[chrisjsewell]

This is now fixed for our documentation 🎉
Apparently RTD was using a "larger" builder for the PR build (see readthedocs/readthedocs.org#7360).
I'm getting clarification on what the specs are for small/large builders to feed back to jupyter/nbclient#95) and if its an issue they could/should be handling.
Otherwise, I guess it might be good to document this potential issue for other RTD users.

[chrisjsewell]

This should also help jupyter/nbclient#101, but will have to wait until 0.4.3 is released

[chrisjsewell]

nbclient 0.5 should hopefully now stop this from happening