"Online help" fails with AssertionError

Problem Description

Display of docs of my Python modules in “Online help” sometimes fails

What steps reproduce the problem?

Clicking on the several of my Python modules in “Online help” reproducibly gives me a display with only the following three lines:

Error 
<module name>.html
AssertionError

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

It does work for most of my modules. I originally found that the problem was that I did not have some of the packages I needed to import the modules in question in the Python that would not display, but I have since loaded and confirmed that I can view the documentation in pydoc in the same Python image I use to run spyder.

I am happy to debug, but need some suggestions on how.

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

No messages in internal console

Versions

Note that this bug also shows up in other, older versions of Spyder

• Spyder version: 5.1.0.dev0 b8e46d6a8
• Python version: 3.8.5 64-bit
• Qt version: 5.9.7
• PyQt5 version: 5.9.2
• Operating System: Darwin 19.6.0

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
applaunchservices >=0.1.7     :  0.2.1 (OK)
atomicwrites >=1.2.0          :  1.4.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0               :  4.0.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0           :  1.6.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0          :  1.7.2 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111   :  20200713 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2          :  3.1.0 (OK)
IPython >=7.6.0               :  7.19.0 (OK)
jedi =0.17.2                  :  0.17.2 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0            :  3.2.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0              :  21.7.0 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0               :  6.0.7 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0              :  1.1.0 (OK)
parso =0.7.0                  :  0.7.0 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0               :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4             :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                  :  5.7.2 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                :  2.7.3 (OK)
pylint >=1.0                  :  2.6.0 (OK)
pyls >=0.36.2;<1.0.0          :  v5.0.1+11.gb8e46d6a8 (NOK)
pyls_black >=0.4.6            :  0.4.6 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.3.2           :  0.3.2 (OK)
qdarkstyle =3.0.2             :  3.0.dev (NOK)
qstylizer >=0.1.10            :  0.1.10 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.0.2             :  1.0.2 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.0.3             :  5.0.3 (OK)
qtpy >=1.5.0                  :  1.9.0 (OK)
rtree >=0.8.3                 :  0.9.4 (OK)
setuptools >=39.0.0           :  51.0.0.post20201207 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                :  3.4.1 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.0.1;<2.1.0 :  2.1.0.dev0 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0          :  4.2.0 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1           :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3;<2.0.0      :  0.10.4 (OK)
zmq >=17                      :  20.0.0 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                 :  None (NOK)
matplotlib >=2.0.0            :  3.3.2 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                   :  1.19.2 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                :  None (NOK)
scipy >=0.17.0                :  1.5.2 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                 :  None (NOK)

[briantoby]

@ccordoba12 I am still coming up to speed on git. Also, I would like to see if I can figure out how to add an option for a plugin, but I will create a pull request with either some brain-dead changes (lines commented) or perhaps something a bit better.

[briantoby]

I have gotten a bit farther on this and see that the assert is in pydoc_patch.CustomHTMLDoc.docclass. I have a hunch that the difference between modules that are displayed and the ones that give the assert error is related to if the module defines classes.

FWIW, removing the assert does allows me to see docs for those classes (though they are huge when inheriting from big classes). Will spend some more time on this.