BUG: `socket.bind('tcp://127.0.0.1:...')` fails with ZMQError: Invalid argument on macOS ARM with pyzmq 26.4.0

[itsmevictor]

This is a pyzmq bug

• This is a pyzmq-specific bug, not an issue of zmq socket behavior. Don't worry if you're not sure! We'll figure it out together.

What pyzmq version?

26.4.0

What libzmq version?

4.3.5_1 (Installed separately via Homebrew)

Python version (and how it was installed)

Python 3.11.12 (Installed via Homebrew)

OS

macOS Sequoia

What happened?

Summary:

When using pyzmq version 26.4.0 on macOS ARM with Python 3.11 (installed via Homebrew) and libzmq 4.3.5_1 (also installed via Homebrew), attempting to bind a socket to a localhost TCP address fails with zmq.error.ZMQError: Invalid argument.

Expected behavior:
The socket.bind('tcp://127.0.0.1:<port>') call should succeed without raising an exception.

Actual behavior:
The call raises the following exception: zmq.error.ZMQError: Invalid argument (addr='tcp://127.0.0.1:<port>')

Code to reproduce bug

import zmq
import platform

print(f"pyzmq version: {zmq.pyzmq_version()}")
print(f"libzmq version: {zmq.zmq_version()}")
print(f"Python version: {platform.python_version()}")
print(f"OS: {platform.system()} {platform.release()} ({platform.machine()})")

ctx = zmq.Context()
sock = ctx.socket(zmq.REP)
address = 'tcp://127.0.0.1:9027' # Example port

try:
    print(f"Attempting to bind to {address}...")
    sock.bind(address) 
    print("Bind successful!")
    sock.close()
except zmq.error.ZMQError as e:
    print(f"Bind failed: {e}") # This is where the error occurs
except Exception as e:
    print(f"An unexpected error occurred: {e}")
finally:
    if not sock.closed:
        sock.close()
    ctx.term()

Finally, reverting to 25.1.2 solved the issue.

[dhagrow]

I am seeing the same error with both bind and connect on Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
_zmq.py:968: in zmq.backend.cython._zmq.Socket.connect
    ???
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>   ???
E   zmq.error.ZMQError: Invalid argument (addr='tcp://127.0.0.1:4568')
_zmq.py:180: ZMQError

Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
  File "_zmq.py", line 942, in zmq.backend.cython._zmq.Socket.bind
  File "_zmq.py", line 180, in zmq.backend.cython._zmq._check_rc
zmq.error.ZMQError: Invalid argument (addr='tcp://127.0.0.1:4567')

I don't see the error on other versions of Windows.

[minrk]

This is my output from @itsmevictor's script (also arm mac, homebrew Python 3.11):

> brew install python@3.11
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/python/3.11/manifests/3.11.12
############################################################################################################################################################################################################### 100.0%
==> Fetching python@3.11
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/python/3.11/blobs/sha256:ef44fa3fc4d611b9d18af77e61fec677986cafc96a92ff733ad971178b1afbc2
############################################################################################################################################################################################################### 100.0%
==> Verifying attestation for python@3.11
==> Pouring python@3.11--3.11.12.arm64_sequoia.bottle.tar.gz
==> /opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.11/3.11.12/bin/python3.11 -Im ensurepip
==> /opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.11/3.11.12/bin/python3.11 -Im pip install -v --no-index --upgrade --isolated --target=/opt/homebrew/lib/python3.11/site-packages /opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.11/3.11.12/Frameworks
==> Caveats
Python is installed as
  /opt/homebrew/bin/python3.11
...
> /opt/homebrew/bin/python3.11 -m venv ./venv
> source ./venv/bin/activate
> pip install pyzmq
Collecting pyzmq
  Downloading pyzmq-26.4.0-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_15_universal2.whl.metadata (6.0 kB)
Downloading pyzmq-26.4.0-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_15_universal2.whl (1.3 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.3/1.3 MB 36.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Installing collected packages: pyzmq
Successfully installed pyzmq-26.4.0
(venv) minrk@heavy-7 [19:37:38] ~/dev/temp
> python3 test.py
pyzmq version: 26.4.0
libzmq version: 4.3.5
Python version: 3.11.12
OS: Darwin 24.4.0 (arm64)
Attempting to bind to tcp://127.0.0.1:9027...
Bind successful!

Did you get pyzmq from a wheel or compile from source?

Do other local addresses work, e.g.

• "tcp://*:9027"
• "tcp://0.0.0.0:9027"
• "tcp://localhost:9027"

Does any 26.x work, or only 25.x?

Here's a script that lets you try more things at once:

import platform
import time

import zmq

print(f"pyzmq version: {zmq.pyzmq_version()}")
print(f"libzmq version: {zmq.zmq_version()}")
print(f"Python version: {platform.python_version()}")
print(f"OS: {platform.system()} {platform.release()} ({platform.machine()})")

with zmq.Context() as ctx:
    for address in [
        'tcp://localhost:9027',
        'tcp://127.0.0.1:9027',
        'tcp://0.0.0.0:9027',
        'tcp://*:9027',
        'tcp://127.0.0.1:65500',
    ]:
        with ctx.socket(zmq.REP) as sock:
            time.sleep(0.2)
            try:
                print(f"Attempting to bind to {address}...")
                sock.bind(address) 
                print("Bind successful!")
            except zmq.error.ZMQError as e:
                print(f"Bind failed: {e}") # This is where the error occurs
            except Exception as e:
                print(f"An unexpected error occurred: {e}")

[itsmevictor]

Thanks for your quick response @minrk. I'm not going to be able to perform further testing (i.e. uninstalling 25.x, installing 26.x) right now, but to answer your questions in the meantime:

1. I got pyzmq from wheel, with pip install.
2. I tried several local addresses and none worked.

I'll try to conduct further testing tomorrow.

[NikolaiUgelvik]

Seeing the same thing on windows, but only when running in the vscode debugger for some reason.

Edit: Downgrading to 26.3.0 worked.

[autra]

Seeing similar error on linux with ipc socket:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/.venv3.9.21/bin/py3dtiles", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/command_line.py", line 27, in main
    convert._main(args)
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/convert.py", line 567, in _main
    return convert(
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/convert.py", line 273, in convert
    converter = _Convert(
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/convert.py", line 381, in __init__
    self.zmq_manager = _ZmqManager(
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/convert.py", line 156, in __init__
    self.socket.bind(URI)
  File "/home/augustin/workspace/py3dtiles/.venv3.9.21/lib/python3.9/site-packages/zmq/sugar/socket.py", line 320, in bind
    super().bind(addr)
  File "_zmq.py", line 942, in zmq.backend.cython._zmq.Socket.bind
  File "_zmq.py", line 180, in zmq.backend.cython._zmq._check_rc
zmq.error.ZMQError: Invalid argument (addr='ipc:///tmp/tmpk23hrjtt/py3dtiles.sock')

It disappears when downgrading to 26.3.0.

Context: https://gitlab.com/py3dtiles/py3dtiles/

[filip-halt]

Im also having this issue on an M1 Max running Sequoia 15.5. Downgrading to 26.3 has fixed it for me.

[minrk]

Is there a chance that folks encountering this might be running in an app context where sandboxing might affect creation of sockets?

[autra]

Not that I know of. Do you need a bisect?

[minrk]

If you can do a bisect, that might help. I suspect installing 26.4 from source may not produce the error, though.

But I've run the same code in the same environment with the same Python, as least as well as it's been described so far, and no error, so I'm at a bit of a loss.

Testing if the Python version, Python source (homebrew or dot org or uv or conda), etc. matters would also help.

[fofoni]

Also hitting this on Ubuntu (both WSL and Azure VMs) with PyZMQ 26.4.0 and Python 3.11.11. In WSL, the Python is from pyenv (i.e. compiled from upstream sources in my box). In the Azure VMs, it's the Azure-provided Python, though I don't see why it would matter. Downgrading PyZMQ to 26.3 solves it both on WSL and in the Azure VM.

(I didn't test installing pyzmq from source at all.)

[minrk]

I'm fascinated that folks are now seeing this on WSL and Azure Ubuntu VMs, and Mac now. I really don't know what could be the cause, given that almost all Macs, VMs, and WSL installs don't see it, and I can't reproduce it.

FWIW, if anyone who can reproduce this can test the new pyzmq 27 wheels, that would be useful to know.

Anyone who can come up with a portable reproducing case would also be much appreciated.