RuntimeError: Can't rename attribute (record is already in B-tree)

I get one test error on Windows after rebuilding h5py-2.9.0 with Cython-0.29.6 and HDF5-1.10.5 (any Python version).

To assist reproducing bugs, please include the following:

• Operating System: Windows 10
• Python version: any
• Where Python was acquired: Python.org
• h5py version: 2.9.0
• HDF5 version: 1.10.5
• The full traceback/stack trace shown (if it appears)

Summary of the h5py configuration
---------------------------------

h5py    2.9.0
HDF5    1.10.5
Python  3.7.2 (tags/v3.7.2:9a3ffc0492, Dec 23 2018, 23:09:28) [MSC v.1916 64 bit (AMD64)]
sys.platform    win32
sys.maxsize     9223372036854775807
numpy   1.15.4

...........E...........................................x.................................s......................................x....................................sX:\Python37\lib\site-packages\h5py\_hl\files.py:258: H5pyDeprecationWarning: File.fid has been deprecated. Use File.id instead.
  "Use File.id instead.", H5pyDeprecationWarning)
...s......ss.ss...............................................................................ss...................ssssss.....................................................................x....x.........................x......x..................................................ssss............................................................
======================================================================
ERROR: test_track_order (h5py.tests.old.test_attrs.TestTrackOrder)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "X:\Python37\lib\site-packages\h5py\tests\old\test_attrs.py", line 180, in test_track_order
    attrs = self.fill_attrs(track_order=True)  # creation order
  File "X:\Python37\lib\site-packages\h5py\tests\old\test_attrs.py", line 174, in fill_attrs
    attrs[str(i)] = i
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 54, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 55, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "X:\Python37\lib\site-packages\h5py\_hl\attrs.py", line 95, in __setitem__
    self.create(name, data=value, dtype=base.guess_dtype(value))
  File "X:\Python37\lib\site-packages\h5py\_hl\attrs.py", line 210, in create
    h5a.rename(self._id, self._e(tempname), self._e(name))
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 54, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\_objects.pyx", line 55, in h5py._objects.with_phil.wrapper
  File "h5py\h5a.pyx", line 118, in h5py.h5a.rename
RuntimeError: Can't rename attribute (record is already in B-tree)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 509 tests in 2.525s

[aparamon]

Hmm, it’s another manifestation of HDFFV-10579: https://github.com/h5py/h5py/pull/1098#issuecomment-437673605

Please put some pressure on HDF Group via forum; we cannot fix it in h5py, unfortunately.

[tacaswell]

This thread has gotten a bit contentious. I believe everyone here is operating in good faith but with constrained resources. Things fall through the cracks despite everyone’s best intentions and efforts.

---

It looks like we had a version check on the failing test https://github.com/h5py/h5py/blob/0cc2c24a39718022465d919fb58209bde9e1bf14/h5py/tests/old/test_attrs.py#L181-L183 being optimistic that it would be fixed in 1.10.5.

The quick fix for this is to bump the version check.

---

Currently h5py CI tests the development branch of h5py against a range of released versions of hdf5 [1] and install hdf5 from source if we have to [2]. I think it is reasonable to add a allowed-fail to our test suite that will install from a development version. Can we have some guidance on what branch we should pull from or is there a weekly/nightly snapshot we should pull instead? It seems like a good idea to push to the hdf5 cdash from that test (maybe not on every PR build?). travis has a way to encode whatever secrets we would need to be able to push out to the hdf5 cdash server.

However, we do not regularly (re)test the released version of h5py, it may make sense for hdfgoup to include a matrix of {py27, py36, py37}x{h5py28, h5py29} in the hdf5 test suite.

@epourmal I’ll also follow up via email.

[1] https://github.com/h5py/h5py/blob/master/.travis.yml [2] https://github.com/h5py/h5py/blob/master/ci/travis/get_hdf5_if_needed.sh