Variable explorer not showing variables after connecting to remote kernel

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

Variable explorer don’t show variables after connecting to remote kernel.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. open a kernel with python -m spyder_kernels.console
2. copy the json file to local dir
3. connect to an exsiting kernel in spyder

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

Variable explorer is expected to show variable a if i run ‘a = 1’

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

no traceback

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.3.3 (conda)
• Python version: 3.9.13 64-bit
• Qt version: 5.15.4
• PyQt5 version: 5.15.7
• Operating System: Windows 10
• spyder-kernels version: 2.3.3

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0                 :  1.4.1 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0                      :  5.0.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0                  :  2.2.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0                 :  2.1.1 (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                   :  4.16.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0                     :  23.9.3 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0                      :  7.0.0 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0                     :  1.4.0 (OK)
paramiko >=2.4.0                     :  2.11.0 (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                         :  5.9.2 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                       :  2.13.0 (OK)
pylint >=2.5.0;<3.0                  :  2.15.3 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0                  :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.5.0;<1.6.0                 :  1.5.0 (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                   :  0.2.2 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.0.2                    :  1.1.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.3.2;<5.4.0             :  5.3.2 (OK)
qtpy >=2.1.0                         :  2.2.0 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                        :  1.0.0 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0                  :  65.3.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                       :  5.1.1 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.3.3;<2.4.0        :  2.3.3 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0                 :  4.5.0 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1                  :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3                    :  2.1.9 (OK)
zmq >=22.1.0                         :  24.0.0 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                        :  0.29.32 (OK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0                   :  3.6.0 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                          :  1.21.5 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                       :  1.5.0 (OK)
scipy >=0.17.0                       :  1.9.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                        :  1.10.1 (OK)

# Spyder plugins:
spyder_terminal.terminalplugin 1.2.2 :  1.2.2 (OK)

This issue seems to be resolved in #14894 , #281, #11538. What happened to my spyder?

[mrclary]

@664787022, I cannot reproduce this issue with either our released 5.3.3 macOS standalone application or my experimental conda-based installer. But I’ll try later with my Windows VM.

[ccordoba12]

So, I don’t know if there may be an issue with consistently refreshing the list at kernel connect, but otherwise I have not seen any issues displaying the workspace variables.

Yeah, I think we should fix that to prevent confusions about the Variable Explorer not working, when it’s really not displaying the current namespace state.