wandb 10.x creates symlinks, which require administrator privileges on Windows

wandb version: 10.7 Python version: 3.8.5 OS: Win 10

Problem

Since the upgrade to wandb10.x it started to create symlinks. This is inconvenient for Windows users, as requires to run my IDE (VS Code) with administrator privileges – few more clicks to do so.

Traceback

wandb: WARNING Symlinked 0 file into the W&B run directory, call wandb.save again to sync new files.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:/Users/Asus/Desktop/Garment-Pattern-Estimation/nn/train.py", line 129, in <module>
    trainer.fit(model)  # Magic happens here
  File "c:\Users\Asus\Desktop\Garment-Pattern-Estimation\nn\trainer.py", line 88, in fit
    start_epoch = self._start_experiment(model)
  File "c:\Users\Asus\Desktop\Garment-Pattern-Estimation\nn\trainer.py", line 154, in _start_experiment
    self.experiment.init_run(self.setup)
  File "c:\Users\Asus\Desktop\Garment-Pattern-Estimation\nn\experiment.py", line 48, in init_run
    wb.save(os.path.join(wb.run.dir, '*.json'))
  File "C:\Users\Asus\anaconda3\envs\Garments\lib\site-packages\wandb\sdk\wandb_run.py", line 919, in save
    os.symlink(abs_path, wandb_path)
OSError: [WinError 1314] A required privilege is not held by the client: 'C:\\Users\\Asus\\Desktop\\Garment-Pattern-Estimation\\wandb\\run-20201016_172608-2v7x9f8u\\files\\wandb-metadata.json' -> 'wandb\\run-20201016_172608-2v7x9f8u\\files\\wandb\\run-20201016_172608-2v7x9f8u\\files\\wandb-metadata.json'

Additional comment

I’m not entirely sure, but I have a suspicion that those symlinks are related to another issue – there is a strange subdirectory in the run directory files with a path like this MyProject/wandb/<rundirname>/files/wandb/<rundirname>/files (duplicate path??). This is also visible in the traceback final paths.

[vanpelt]

A quick fix is to write the file a file directly into wandb.run.dir and then call save which will bypass the symlink. In a future release we’ll switch to copying instead of symlinking.

[balloch]

I am encountering this problem on linux, so its defintely not windows specific. This shouldn’t be closed, definitely still a bug. Occurs when code and logs are on a mounted drive:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/datadrive/code/EngineLearning/rl_training.py", line 889, in <module>
    main(config_args)
  File "/datadrive/code/EngineLearning/rl_training.py", line 877, in main
    imagination_training(forward_model=forward_model,
  File "/datadrive/code/EngineLearning/rl_training.py", line 666, in imagination_training
    continue_training_real = collect_real_rollouts(
  File "/datadrive/code/EngineLearning/rl_training.py", line 452, in collect_real_rollouts
    if callback.on_step() is False:
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/stable_baselines3/common/callbacks.py", line 88, in on_step
    return self._on_step()
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/stable_baselines3/common/callbacks.py", line 192, in _on_step
    continue_training = callback.on_step() and continue_training
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/stable_baselines3/common/callbacks.py", line 88, in on_step
    return self._on_step()
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wandb/integration/sb3/sb3.py", line 117, in _on_step
    self.save_model()
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wandb/integration/sb3/sb3.py", line 126, in save_model
    wandb.save(self.path, base_path=self.model_save_path)
  File "/home/balloch/miniconda3/envs/engine_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wandb/sdk/wandb_run.py", line 1422, in save
    os.symlink(abs_path, wandb_path)
PermissionError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/datadrive/wandb_tmp/model.zip' -> './logs/wandb/run-20220519_024813-1m4f5zi2/files/model.zip'