interrupt issues with async code

Open
#1,239 4 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@Carreau is already working on this.

Since Aug 26, 2026.

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Description

bug

Hi,

Aside from the now fixed #881, I still run into some async + interrupt issues. I'm not 100% sure if I need to do something differently or there is a way to do what we mean.

The following is not interrupted and always run to completion. If you sleep instead of httpx.get (or request.get), it works as expected.

import asyncio
import httpx
from tqdm.asyncio import tqdm as tqdm_async

semaphore = asyncio.Semaphore(1)

x = 0
async def one_at_a_time():
    global semaphore

    async with semaphore:
        global x
        # await asyncio.sleep(1)
        httpx.get('http://httpbin.org/delay/1')
        x += 1
        print(x)
    return x

await tqdm_async.gather(*[one_at_a_time() for _ in range(10)])

Ideally, I want these to be tasks so I can cancel them. Again, interrupt has no effect:

import asyncio
from time import sleep
from tqdm.asyncio import tqdm as tqdm_async

semaphore = asyncio.Semaphore(1)
x = 0
async def one_at_a_time():
    global semaphore

    async with semaphore:
        global x
        sleep(1)
        x += 1
        print(x)
    return x

async def outer_async():
    return await one_at_a_time()
    
await tqdm_async.gather(*[asyncio.create_task(one_at_a_time()) for _ in range(10)])

Any suggestions for how to fix my code to work better with ipykernel or how to fix ipykernel (or IPython) itself? Even better would be something that works on 6.x, but I think that may be challenging as even #881 is not fixed there.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
734
Forks
411
Avg merge
1d 2h
Merged PRs (30d)
9

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from ipython/ipykernel

All issues in ipython/ipykernel

Similar issues

More Python issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.