pycharm-troubleshoot.md

Some important things to note when one tries to use a remote interpreter in PyCharm:

1. If you are using two instances of PyCharm, e.g. on two differenct machines:

   • map the project to a separate folder in the remote disk, the default /tmp/_______ should be fine, but it could be anywhere.
   • map the .pycharm_helper folder to a separate directory too, e.g. for home machine access create a ~/.pycharm_helper_home to map to.

2. If you are using conda environments, do the following to actually get conda working:

   • suppose you are using an environment called my_conda_env, find the location of the python executable, e.g. you can do

     $ conda activate my_conda_env
     $ which python

   • now you know the path to that python interpreter is for example .../miniconda3/envs/my_conda_env/bin/python
   • now add a file pycharm_python to .../miniconda3/envs/my_conda_env/bin/ with the following content:

     #!/usr/bin/env bash
     
     source .../miniconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh  # <-- here you need to change it to the actual path
     conda activate my_conda_env
     python "$@"

   • set the remote interpreter to .../miniconda3/envs/my_conda_env/bin/pycharm_python in the remote server
   • to check if conda environment is actually used, in Python Console in PyCharm:

     >>> import os
     >>> print(os.environ.get('CONDA_PREFIX'))

3. Make sure in all settings, e.g.

   • "Tools -> Deployment -> Configuration/Options" in top menu bar,
   • "Python Interpreter -> Interpreter Settings -> (Gear Icon) -> Show All -> (Pen Icon)" in PyCharm Settings (can be launched from bottom-right corner),
   • etc.

4. Make sure when you are deploying by uploading in "Tools -> Deployment -> Upload ...", select the correct file/directory in project tree (usually just select the project root), otherwise not all files are sync-ed.