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Python's win32com.client not opening Excel and refreshing when run from a job scheduler

We have a python program that is designed to open an Excel template document, run refreshall() twice (data and pivots), then saveas() a new filename in an output directory.
When I log in to the server and run the program, everything works as required - both refreshall() steps update and the new file is saved with the updated data. This is the case not matter how the Visible flag is set (True or False).
When we set it as a step in an MS SQL job, the output file is created, but the updates are not done. I've been all over Stack Overflow and the internet in general, and have found no answers to solve this.
Using the combrowse.py script to look at the COM objects, we can see that excel is in the "Running Objects" list when run logged in, but it is NOT in the list when it is running via the MS SQL job (reduced to a single step in the job).
I looked at stdout to see if that might be an issue. My theory is that there is no console in which to operate when run via the job, and so Excel does not start (and the refreshall() cannot run). I found that the stdout when run locally is a UTF-8 encoding and when run via the job is a cp1252 encoding. I couldn't get anything more useful than that.
Code snippet:
from AE import logging, encrypt
import os, sys, shutil, datetime, gc
import time
import win32com.client
script_name = 'PerSta'
log_id = logging.Start_script(script_name)
try:
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Opening excel')
ExcelConn = win32com.client.DispatchEx("Excel.Application")
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'ExcelConn is:')
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = repr(ExcelConn))
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Opening {}'.format(script_name))
PS = ExcelConn.Workbooks.Open(datadict.get('path') + datadict.get('filename'))
ExcelConn.Interactive = False
ExcelConn.Visible = False
ExcelConn.DisplayAlerts = False
ExcelConn.EnableEvents = False
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Refreshing excel first time')
PS.RefreshAll()
ExcelConn.CalculateUntilAsyncQueriesDone()
time.sleep(pause_for_refresh)
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Refreshing excel second time')
PS.RefreshAll() #Refresh again to update any pivots
ExcelConn.CalculateUntilAsyncQueriesDone()
time.sleep(pause_for_refresh)
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Saving workbook')
PS.SaveAs(Report)
time.sleep(pause_for_refresh)
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Closing workbook')
PS.Close(SaveChanges = True)
time.sleep(pause_for_refresh)
PS = None
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Closing filehandle')
ExcelConn.Quit()
ExcelConn = None
except:
logging.Log_script_message(id = log_id, message = 'Refreshed failed, closing filehandle')
PS.Close(SaveChanges = False)
PS = None
ExcelConn.Quit()
ExcelConn = None
I believe the issue lies in not having a screen for Excel to do its work, but I have not been able to prove that. We get NO ERRORS at all, either way it is run. I would expect that there would be an error in the job scenario, since it doesn't do what it says that it is, but that is not the case.
Any help would be much appreciated!!
--MIKE--
Edit: the Interactive, Visible, DisplayAlerts, and EnableEvents was put in as testing to see if we could use those to fix the issue. They did not work, no matter how they were set, but left them in in case they came up in discussion.

Cannot ingest data using snowpipe more than once

I am using the sample program from the Snowflake document on using Python to ingest the data to the destination table.
So basically, I have to execute put command to load data to the internal stage and then run the Python program to notify the snowpipe to ingest the data to the table.
This is how I create the internal stage and pipe:
create or replace stage exampledb.dbschema.example_stage;
create or replace pipe exampledb.dbschema.example_pipe
as copy into exampledb.dbschema.example_table
from
(
select
t.*
from
#exampledb.dbschema.example_stage t
)
file_format = (TYPE = CSV) ON_ERROR = SKIP_FILE;
put command:
put file://E:\\example\\data\\a.csv #exampledb.dbschema.example_stage OVERWRITE = TRUE;
This is the sample program I use:
from logging import getLogger
from snowflake.ingest import SimpleIngestManager
from snowflake.ingest import StagedFile
from snowflake.ingest.utils.uris import DEFAULT_SCHEME
from datetime import timedelta
from requests import HTTPError
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives import serialization
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.serialization import load_pem_private_key
from cryptography.hazmat.backends import default_backend
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.serialization import Encoding
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.serialization import PrivateFormat
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.serialization import NoEncryption
import time
import datetime
import os
import logging
logging.basicConfig(
filename='/tmp/ingest.log',
level=logging.DEBUG)
logger = getLogger(__name__)
# If you generated an encrypted private key, implement this method to return
# the passphrase for decrypting your private key.
def get_private_key_passphrase():
return '<private_key_passphrase>'
with open("E:\\ssh\\rsa_key.p8", 'rb') as pem_in:
pemlines = pem_in.read()
private_key_obj = load_pem_private_key(pemlines,
get_private_key_passphrase().encode(),
default_backend())
private_key_text = private_key_obj.private_bytes(
Encoding.PEM, PrivateFormat.PKCS8, NoEncryption()).decode('utf-8')
# Assume the public key has been registered in Snowflake:
# private key in PEM format
# List of files in the stage specified in the pipe definition
file_list=['a.csv.gz']
ingest_manager = SimpleIngestManager(account='<account_identifier>',
host='<account_identifier>.snowflakecomputing.com',
user='<user_login_name>',
pipe='exampledb.dbschema.example_pipe',
private_key=private_key_text)
# List of files, but wrapped into a class
staged_file_list = []
for file_name in file_list:
staged_file_list.append(StagedFile(file_name, None))
try:
resp = ingest_manager.ingest_files(staged_file_list)
except HTTPError as e:
# HTTP error, may need to retry
logger.error(e)
exit(1)
# This means Snowflake has received file and will start loading
assert(resp['responseCode'] == 'SUCCESS')
# Needs to wait for a while to get result in history
while True:
history_resp = ingest_manager.get_history()
if len(history_resp['files']) > 0:
print('Ingest Report:\n')
print(history_resp)
break
else:
# wait for 20 seconds
time.sleep(20)
hour = timedelta(hours=1)
date = datetime.datetime.utcnow() - hour
history_range_resp = ingest_manager.get_history_range(date.isoformat() + 'Z')
print('\nHistory scan report: \n')
print(history_range_resp)
After running the program, I just need to remove the file in the internal stage:
REMOVE #exampledb.dbschema.example_stage;
The code works as expected for the first time but when I truncate the data on that table and run the code again, the table on snowflake doesn't have any data in it.
Do I miss something here? How can I make this code can run multiple times?
Update:
I found that if I use a file with a different name each time I run, the data can load to the snowflake table.
So how can I run this code without changing the data filename?

Snowflake uses file loading metadata to prevent reloading the same files (and duplicating data) in a table. Snowpipe prevents loading files with the same name even if they were later modified (i.e. have a different eTag).
The file loading metadata is associated with the pipe object rather than the table. As a result:
Staged files with the same name as files that were already loaded are ignored, even if they have been modified, e.g. if new rows were added or errors in the file were corrected.
Truncating the table using the TRUNCATE TABLE command does not delete the Snowpipe file loading metadata.
However, note that pipes only maintain the load history metadata for 14 days. Therefore:
Files modified and staged again within 14 days:
Snowpipe ignores modified files that are staged again. To reload modified data files, it is currently necessary to recreate the pipe object using the CREATE OR REPLACE PIPE syntax.
Files modified and staged again after 14 days:
Snowpipe loads the data again, potentially resulting in duplicate records in the target table.
For more information have a look here

Save live data from data logger to csv file by python

I have a data logger to record the temperature. I want to save these data and epoch time in a csv file. I tried the following code, there is no error reporting but the csv file is empty. Can anyone help me to figure out the problem?
import board
import busio
import adafruit_mcp9600
import time
i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL,board.SDA,frequency = 100000)
mcp = adafruit_mcp9600.MCP9600(i2c, 0x60, tctype = "J")
with open ("/home/pi/Documents/test.csv", "a") as log:
while True:
temp = mcp.temperature
temptime = time.time()
log.write("{0},{1}\n".format(str(temptime),str(temp)))
time.sleep(1)

Assuming those libraries you're importing are working correctly, I think this is because the writer is not flushing the buffer, so it appears like nothing is being written.
The solution would be to flush with log.flush() after each time you write a log.
Try a simpler example:
A)
import time
def go():
i = 0
with open("/home/some/dir/test.csv", "a") as nice:
while True:
nice.write(f"hello,{i},{time.time()}\n")
i += 1
time.sleep(5)
if __name__ == "__main__":
go()
versus
B)
import time
def go():
i = 0
while True:
with open("/home/some/dir/test.csv", "a") as nice:
nice.write(f"hello,{i},{time.time()}\n")
i += 1
time.sleep(5)
if __name__ == "__main__":
go()
When I refresh the file in case A, new rows do not appear to be written. They are in case B, though.
If I modify case A) and add nice.flush() after each write, it fixes the issue.
The above two blocks are just to demonstrate what you're seeing. I'm not suggesting you do one or the other. Ultimately, I would not suggest doing anything like this, and I would instead use the logging package and configure a proper logger if you're indeed trying to create log files.

Python 3 urllib: 530 too many connections, in loop

I am retrieving data files from a FTP server in a loop with the following code:
response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
data = response.read()
response.close()
compressed_file = io.BytesIO(data)
gin = gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=compressed_file)
Retrieving and processing the first few works fine, but after a few request I am getting the following error:
530 Maximum number of connections exceeded.
I tried closing the connection (see code above) and using a sleep() timer, but this both did not work. What is it I am doing wrong here?

Trying to make urllib do FTP properly makes my brain hurt. By default, it creates a new connection for each file, apparently without really properly ensuring the connections close.
ftplib is more appropriate I think.
Since I happen to be working on the same data you are(were)... Here is a very specific answer decompressing the .gz files and passing them into ish_parser (https://github.com/haydenth/ish_parser).
I think it is also clear enough to serve as a general answer.
import ftplib
import io
import gzip
import ish_parser # from: https://github.com/haydenth/ish_parser
ftp_host = "ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov"
parser = ish_parser.ish_parser()
# identifies what data to get
USAF_ID = '722950'
WBAN_ID = '23174'
YEARS = range(1975, 1980)
with ftplib.FTP(host=ftp_host) as ftpconn:
ftpconn.login()
for year in YEARS:
ftp_file = "pub/data/noaa/{YEAR}/{USAF}-{WBAN}-{YEAR}.gz".format(USAF=USAF_ID, WBAN=WBAN_ID, YEAR=year)
print(ftp_file)
# read the whole file and save it to a BytesIO (stream)
response = io.BytesIO()
try:
ftpconn.retrbinary('RETR '+ftp_file, response.write)
except ftplib.error_perm as err:
if str(err).startswith('550 '):
print('ERROR:', err)
else:
raise
# decompress and parse each line
response.seek(0) # jump back to the beginning of the stream
with gzip.open(response, mode='rb') as gzstream:
for line in gzstream:
parser.loads(line.decode('latin-1'))
This does read the whole file into memory, which could probably be avoided using some clever wrappers and/or yield or something... but works fine for a year's worth of hourly weather observations.

Probably a pretty nasty workaround, but this worked for me. I made a script (here called test.py) which does the request (see code above). The code below is used in the loop I mentioned and calls test.py
from subprocess import call
with open('log.txt', 'a') as f:
call(['python', 'test.py', args[0], args[1]], stdout=f)

When working with a named pipe is there a way to do something like readlines()

Overall Goal: I am trying to read some progress data from a python exe to update the progress of the exe in another application
I have a python exe that is going to do some stuff, I want to be able to communicate the progress to another program. Based on several other Q&A here I have been able to have my running application send progress data to a named pipe using the following code
import win32pipe
import win32file
import glob
test_files = glob.glob('J:\\someDirectory\\*.htm')
# test_files has two items a.htm and b.htm
p = win32pipe.CreateNamedPipe(r'\\.\pipe\wfsr_pipe',
win32pipe.PIPE_ACCESS_DUPLEX,
win32pipe.PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE | win32pipe.PIPE_WAIT,
1,65536,65536,300,None)
# the following line is the server-side function for accepting a connection
# see the following SO question and answer
""" http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1749001/named-pipes-between-c-sharp-and-python
"""
win32pipe.ConnectNamedPipe(p, None)
for each in testFiles:
win32file.WriteFile(p,each + '\n')
#send final message
win32file.WriteFile(p,'Process Complete')
# close the connection
p.close()
In short the example code writes the path of the each file that was globbed to the NamedPipe - this is useful and can be easily extended to more logging type events. However, the problem is trying to figure out how to read the content of the named pipe without knowing the size of each possible message. For example the first file could be named J:\someDirectory\a.htm, but the second could have 300 characters in the name.
So far the code I am using to read the contents of the pipe requires that I specify a buffer size
First establish the connection
file_handle = win32file.CreateFile("\\\\.\\pipe\\wfsr_pipe",
win32file.GENERIC_READ | win32file.GENERIC_WRITE,
0, None,
win32file.OPEN_EXISTING,
0, None)
and then I have been playing around with reading from the file
data = win32file.ReadFile(file_handle,128)
This generally works but I really want to read until I hit a newline character, do something with the content between when I started reading and the newline character and then repeat the process until I get to a line that has Process Complete in the line
I have been struggling with how to read only until I find a newline character (\n). I basically want to read the file by lines and based on the content of the line do something (either display the line or shift the application focus).
Based on the suggestion provided by #meuh I am updating this because I think there is a dearth of examples, guidance in how to use pipes
My server code
import win32pipe
import win32file
import glob
import os
p = win32pipe.CreateNamedPipe(r'\\.\pipe\wfsr_pipe',
win32pipe.PIPE_ACCESS_DUPLEX,
win32pipe.PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE | win32pipe.PIPE_WAIT,
1,65536,65536,300,None)
# the following line is the server-side function for accepting a connection
# see the following SO question and answer
""" http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1749001/named-pipes-between-c-sharp-and-python
"""
win32pipe.ConnectNamedPipe(p, None)
for file_id in glob.glob('J:\\level1\\level2\\level3\\*'):
for filer_id in glob.glob(file_id + os.sep + '*'):
win32file.WriteFile(p,filer_id)
#send final message
win32file.WriteFile(p,'Process Complete')
# close the connection
p.close() #still not sure if this should be here, I need more testing
# I think the client can close p
The Client code
import win32pipe
import win32file
file_handle = win32file.CreateFile("\\\\.\\pipe\\wfsr_pipe",
win32file.GENERIC_READ |
win32file.GENERIC_WRITE,
0, None,win32file.OPEN_EXISTING,0, None)
# this is the key, setting readmode to MESSAGE
win32pipe.SetNamedPipeHandleState(file_handle,
win32pipe.PIPE_READMODE_MESSAGE, None, None)
# for testing purposes I am just going to write the messages to a file
out_ref = open('e:\\testpipe.txt','w')
dstring = '' # need some way to know that the messages are complete
while dstring != 'Process Complete':
# setting the blocksize at 4096 to make sure it can handle any message I
# might anticipate
data = win32file.ReadFile(file_handle,4096)
# data is a tuple, the first position seems to always be 0 but need to find
# the docs to help understand what determines the value, the second is the
# message
dstring = data[1]
out_ref.write(dstring + '\n')
out_ref.close() # got here so close my testfile
file_handle.close() # close the file_handle

I don't have windows but looking through the api it seems you should convert
your client to message mode by adding after the CreateFile() the call:
win32pipe.SetNamedPipeHandleState(file_handle,
win32pipe.PIPE_READMODE_MESSAGE, None, None)
then each sufficiently long read will return a single message, ie what the other wrote in a single write. You already set PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE when you created the pipe.

You could simply use an implementation of io.IOBase that would wrap the NamedPipe.
class PipeIO(io.RawIOBase):
def __init__(self, handle):
self.handle = handle
def read(self, n):
if (n == 0): return ""
elif n == -1: return self.readall()
data = win32file.ReadFile(self.file_handle,n)
return data
def readinto(self, b):
data = self.read(len(b))
for i in range(len(data)):
b[i] = data[i]
return len(data)
def readall(self):
data = ""
while True:
chunk = win32file.ReadFile(self.file_handle,10240)
if (len(chunk) == 0): return data
data += chunk
BEWARE : untested, but it should work after fixing the eventual typos.
You could then do:
with PipeIO(file_handle) as fd:
for line in fd:
# process a line

You could use the msvcrt module and open to turn the pipe into a file object.
Sending code
import win32pipe
import os
import msvcrt
from io import open
pipe = win32pipe.CreateNamedPipe(r'\\.\pipe\wfsr_pipe',
win32pipe.PIPE_ACCESS_OUTBOUND,
win32pipe.PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE | win32pipe.PIPE_WAIT,
1,65536,65536,300,None)
# wait for another process to connect
win32pipe.ConnectNamedPipe(pipe, None)
# get a file descriptor to write to
write_fd = msvcrt.open_osfhandle(pipe, os.O_WRONLY)
with open(write_fd, "w") as writer:
# now we have a file object that we can write to in a standard way
for i in range(0, 10):
# create "a\n" in the first iteration, "bb\n" in the second and so on
text = chr(ord("a") + i) * (i + 1) + "\n"
writer.write(text)
Receiving code
import win32file
import os
import msvcrt
from io import open
handle = win32file.CreateFile(r"\\.\pipe\wfsr_pipe",
win32file.GENERIC_READ,
0, None,
win32file.OPEN_EXISTING,
0, None)
read_fd = msvcrt.open_osfhandle(handle, os.O_RDONLY)
with open(read_fd, "r") as reader:
# now we have a file object with the readlines and other file api methods
lines = reader.readlines()
print(lines)
Some notes.
I've only tested this with python 3.4, but I believe you may be using python 2.x.
Python seems to get weird if you try to close both the file object and the pipe..., so I've only used the file object (by using the with block)
I've only created the file objects to read on one end and write on the other. You can of course make the file objects duplex by
Creating the file descriptors (read_fd and write_fd) with the os.O_RDWR flag
Creating the file objects in in "r+" mode rather than "r" or "w"
Going back to creating the pipe with the win32pipe.PIPE_ACCESS_DUPLEX flag
Going back to creating the file handle object with the win32file.GENERIC_READ | win32file.GENERIC_WRITE flags.