Salvaging an IPython session from a frozen Atom

[tscholak]

Is there any way I can salvage a still running python backend if Atom locked up completely (but hasn't crashed)? Can I connect the python session to a CLI somehow?

I have been running a program for a while now and I don't want to loose my results.

[willwhitney]

The IPython kernel saves out a file for reconnection — if it's still running, I think you can reconnect to it. When you run a kernel directly, it spits out a message like this:

To connect another client to this kernel, use:
    --existing kernel-15035.json

The file is (for me) saved in /Users/will/.ipython/profile_default/security and is called kernel-XXXXX.json. If you find the most recent one of those in the folder, then you can run ipython console --existing kernel-15035.json to connect to it.

[willwhitney]

I just tried this with a kernel started by Hydrogen and it worked. You can even run %history to get the list of recently-run commands.

[tscholak]

That is interesting. I just gave that a try. It seems I can connect,

$ ipython console --existing kernel-59784.json
IPython Console 3.1.0

but I don't get further than that. Maybe I should say that the python script is still running. I want to interrupt it, pickle as much as I can, and then restart atom.

[willwhitney]

Maybe you can send an interrupt to the kernel manually — you can ps aux | grep python, then (double-check this) kill -2 <process number>.

[tscholak]

Success! Thanks a lot!
Hope that will help others, too.