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Python multiprocessing output result

Given a list of data to process and a 64-core CPU (plus 500 GB RAM).
The list should sort strings and store data in a result set of millions of records, which runs just fine, takes a few seconds with multiprocessing.
But I'd also need to store the result somehow, either in a txt, csv output or a database. So far I haven't found a viable solution, because after the first part (process), the insert method either gives an error with trying it with MySQL pooling, or takes an insanely long time giving the txt output.
What Ive tried so far: simple txt output, print out to txt file, using csv, pandas and numpy libs. Nothing seems to speed it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
My code right now:
import os
import re
import datetime
import time
import csv
import mysql.connector as connector
from mysql.connector.pooling import MySQLConnectionPool
import mysql
import numpy as np
from tqdm import tqdm
from time import sleep
import multiprocessing as mp
import numpy
pool = MySQLConnectionPool( pool_name="sql_pool",
pool_size=32,
pool_reset_session=True,
host="localhost",
port="3306",
user="homestead",
password="secret",
database="homestead")
# # sql connection
db = mysql.connector.connect(
host="localhost",
port="3306",
user="homestead",
password="secret",
database="homestead"
)
sql_cursor = db.cursor()
delete_statement = "DELETE FROM statistics"
sql_cursor.execute(delete_statement)
db.commit()
sql_statement = "INSERT INTO statistics (name, cnt) VALUES (%s, %s)"
list = []
domains = mp.Manager().list()
unique_list = mp.Manager().list()
invalid_emails = mp.Manager().list()
result = mp.Manager().list()
regex_email = '^(\w|\.|\_|\-)+[#](\w|\_|\-|\.)+[.]\w{2,3}$'
# check email validity
def check(list, email):
if(re.search(regex_email, email)):
domains.append(email.lower().split('#')[1])
return True
else:
invalid_emails.append(email)
return False
#end of check email validity
# execution time converter
def convertTime(seconds):
seconds = seconds % (24 * 3600)
hour = seconds // 3600
seconds %= 3600
minutes = seconds // 60
seconds %= 60
if(hour == 0):
if(minutes == 0):
return "{0} sec".format(seconds)
else:
return "{0}min {1}sec".format(minutes, seconds)
else:
return "{0}hr {1}min {2}sec".format(hour, minutes, seconds)
# execution time converter end
#process
def process(list):
for item in tqdm(list):
if(check(list, item)):
item = item.lower().split('#')[1]
if item not in unique_list:
unique_list.append(item)
# end of process
def insert(list):
global sql_statement
# Add to db
con = pool.get_connection()
cur = con.cursor()
print("PID %d: using connection %s" % (os.getpid(), con))
#cur.executemany(sql_statement, sorted(map(set_result, list)))
for item in list:
cur.execute(sql_statement, (item, domains.count(item)))
con.commit()
cur.close()
con.close()
# def insert_into_database(list):
#sql_cursor.execute(sql_statement, (unique_list, 1), multi=True)
# sql_cursor.executemany(sql_statement, sorted(map(set_result, list)))
# db.commit()
# statistics
def statistics(list):
for item in tqdm(list):
if(domains.count(item) > 0):
result.append([domains.count(item), item])
# end of statistics
params = sys.argv
filename = ''
process_count = -1
for i, item in enumerate(params):
if(item.endswith('.txt')):
filename = item
if(item == '--top'):
process_count = int(params[i+1])
def set_result(item):
return item, domains.count(item)
# main
if(filename):
try:
start_time = time.time()
now = datetime.datetime.now()
dirname = "email_stats_{0}".format(now.strftime("%Y%m%d_%H%M%S"))
os.mkdir(dirname)
list = open(filename).read().split()
if(process_count == -1):
process_count = len(list)
if(process_count > 0):
list = list[:process_count]
#chunking list
n = int(len(list) / mp.cpu_count())
chunks = [list[i:i + n] for i in range(0, len(list), n)]
processes = []
print('Processing list on {0} cores...'.format(mp.cpu_count()))
for chunk in chunks:
p = mp.Process(target=process, args=[chunk])
p.start()
processes.append(p)
for p in processes:
p.join()
# insert(unique_list)
## step 2 - write sql
## Clearing out db before new data insert
con = pool.get_connection()
cur = con.cursor()
delete_statement = "DELETE FROM statistics"
cur.execute(delete_statement)
u_processes = []
#Maximum pool size for sql is 32, so maximum chunk number should be that too.
if(mp.cpu_count() < 32):
n2 = int(len(unique_list) / mp.cpu_count())
else:
n2 = int(len(unique_list) / 32)
u_chunks = [unique_list[i:i + n2] for i in range(0, len(unique_list), n2)]
for u_chunk in u_chunks:
p = mp.Process(target=insert, args=[u_chunk])
p.start()
u_processes.append(p)
for p in u_processes:
p.join()
for p in u_processes:
p.close()
# sql_cursor.executemany(sql_statement, sorted(map(set_result, unique_list)))
# db.commit()
# for item in tqdm(unique_list):
# sql_val = (item, domains.count(item))
# sql_cursor.execute(sql_statement, sql_val)
#
# db.commit()
## numpy.savetxt('saved.txt', sorted(map(set_result, unique_list)), fmt='%s')
# with(mp.Pool(mp.cpu_count(), initializer = db) as Pool:
# Pool.map_async(insert_into_database(),set(unique_list))
# Pool.close()
# Pool.join()
print('Creating statistics for {0} individual domains...'.format(len(unique_list)))
# unique_list = set(unique_list)
# with open("{0}/result.txt".format(dirname), "w+") as f:
# csv.writer(f).writerows(sorted(map(set_result, unique_list), reverse=True))
print('Writing final statistics...')
print('OK.')
f = open("{0}/stat.txt".format(dirname),"w+")
f.write("Number of processed emails: {0}\r\n".format(process_count))
f.write("Number of valid emails: {0}\r\n".format(len(list) - len(invalid_emails)))
f.write("Number of invalid emails: {0}\r\n".format(len(invalid_emails)))
f.write("Execution time: {0}".format(convertTime(int(time.time() - start_time))))
f.close()
except FileNotFoundError:
print('File not found, path or file broken.')
else:
print('Wrong file format, should be a txt file.')
# main

See my comments regarding some changes you might wish to make, one of which might improve performance. But I think one area of performance which could really be improved is in your use of managed lists. These are represented by proxies and each operation on such a list is essentially a remote procedure call and thus very slow. You cannot avoid this given that you need to have multiple processes updating a common, shared lists (or dict if you take my suggestion). But in the main process you might be trying, for example, to construct a set from a shared list as follows:
Pool.map_async(insert_into_database(),set(unique_list))
(by the way, that should be Pool.map(insert_into_database, set(unique_list)), i.e. you have an extra set of () and you can then get rid of the calls to pool.close() and pool.join() if you wish)
The problem is that you are iterating every element of unique_list through a proxy, which might be what is taking a very long time. I say "might" because I would think the use of managed lists would prevent the code as is, i.e. without outputting the results, from completing in "a few seconds" if we are talking about "millions" of records and thus millions of remote procedure calls. But this number could certainly be reduced if you could somehow get the underlying list as a native list.
First, you need to heed my comment about having declared a variable named list thus making it impossible to create native lists or subclasses of list. Once your have renamed that variable to something more reasonable, we can create our own managed class MyList that will expose the underlying list on which it is built. Note that you can do the same thing with a MyDict class that subclasses dict. I have defined both classes for you. Here is a benchmark showing the difference between constructing a native list from a managed list versus creating a native list from a MyList:
import multiprocessing as mp
from multiprocessing.managers import BaseManager
import time
class MyManager(BaseManager):
pass
class MyList(list):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
def get_underlying_list(self):
return self
class MyDict(dict):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
def get_underlying_dict(self):
return self
# required for windows, which I am running on:
if __name__ == '__main__':
l = mp.Manager().list()
for i in range(100_000):
l.append(i)
t = time.time()
l2 = list(l)
print(time.time() - t, l2[0:5], l2[-5:])
MyManager.register('MyList', MyList)
MyManager.register('MyDict', MyDict)
my_manager = MyManager()
# must explicitly start the manager or use: with MyManager() as manager:
my_manager.start()
l = my_manager.MyList()
for i in range(100_000):
l.append(i)
t = time.time()
l2 = list(l.get_underlying_list())
print(time.time() - t, l2[0:5], l2[-5:])
Prints:
7.3949973583221436 [0, 1, 2, 3, 4] [99995, 99996, 99997, 99998, 99999]
0.007997751235961914 [0, 1, 2, 3, 4] [99995, 99996, 99997, 99998, 99999]

how to provide multiprocessing.process unique variblables

I have a list containing ID Number's, I want to implement every unique ID Number in an API call for each Multiprocessor whilst running the same corresponding functions, implementing the same conditional statements to each processor etc. I have tried to make sense of it but there is not a lot online about this procedure.
I thought to use a for loop but I don't want every processor running this for loop picking up every item in a list. I just need each item to be associated to each processor.
I was thinking something like this:
from multiprocessing import process
import requests, json
ID_NUMBERS = ["ID 1", "ID 2", "ID 3".... ETC]
BASE_URL = "www.api.com"
KEY = {"KEY": "12345"}
a = 0
for x in ID_NUMBERS:
def[a]():
while Active_live_data == True:
# continuously loops over, requesting data from the website
unique_api_call = "{}/livedata[{}]".format(BASE_URL, x)
request_it = requests.get(unique_api_call, headers=KEY)
show_it = (json.loads(request_it.content))
#some extra conditional code...
a += 1
processes = []
b = 0
for _ in range(len(ID_NUMBERS))
p = multiprocessing.Process(target = b)
p.start()
processes.append(p)
b += 1
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Kindest regards,
Andrew

You can use the map function:
import multiprocessing as mp
num_cores = mp.cpu_count()
pool = mp.Pool(processes=num_cores)
results = pool.map(your_function, list_of_IDs)
This will execute the function your_function, each time with a different item from the list list_of_IDs, and the values returned by your_function will be stored in a list of values (results).

Same approach as #AlessiaM but uses the high-level api in the concurrent.futures module.
import concurrent.futures as mp
import requests, json
BASE_URL = ''
KEY = {"KEY": "12345"}
ID_NUMBERS = ["ID 1", "ID 2", "ID 3"]
def job(id):
unique_api_call = "{}/livedata[{}]".format(BASE_URL, id)
request_it = requests.get(unique_api_call, headers=KEY)
show_it = (json.loads(request_it.content))
return show_it
# Default to as many workers as there are processors,
# But since your job is IO bound (vs CPU bound),
# you could increase this to an even bigger figure by giving the `max_workers` parameter
with mp.ProcessPoolExecutor() as pool:
results = pool.map(job,ID_NUMBERS)
# Process results here

Using concurrent.futures within a for statement

I store QuertyText within a pandas dataframe. Once I've loaded all the queries into I want to conduct an analysis again each query. Currently, I have ~50k to evaluate. So, doing it one by one, will take a long time.
So, I wanted to implement concurrent.futures. How do I take the individual QueryText stored within fullAnalysis as pass it to concurrent.futures and return the output as a variable?
Here is my entire code:
import pandas as pd
import time
import gensim
import sys
import warnings
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
from concurrent.futures import as_completed
fullAnalysis = pd.DataFrame()
def fetch_data(jFile = 'ProcessingDetails.json'):
print("Fetching data...please wait")
#read JSON file for latest dictionary file name
baselineDictionaryFileName = 'Dictionary/Dictionary_05-03-2020.json'
#copy data to pandas dataframe
labelled_data = pd.read_json(baselineDictionaryFileName)
#Add two more columns to get the most similar text and score
labelled_data['SimilarText'] = ''
labelled_data['SimilarityScore'] = float()
print("Data fetched from " + baselineDictionaryFileName + " and there are " + str(labelled_data.shape[0]) + " rows to be evalauted")
return labelled_data
def calculateScore(inputFunc):
warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=DeprecationWarning)
model = gensim.models.Word2Vec.load('w2v_model_bigdata')
inp = inputFunc
print(inp)
out = dict()
strEvaluation = inp.split("most_similar ",1)[1]
#while inp != 'quit':
split_inp = inp.split()
try:
if split_inp[0] == 'help':
pass
elif split_inp[0] == 'similarity' and len(split_inp) >= 3:
pass
elif split_inp[0] == 'most_similar' and len(split_inp) >= 2:
for pair in model.most_similar(positive=[split_inp[1]]):
out.update({pair[0]: pair[1]})
except KeyError as ke:
#print(str(ke) + "\n")
inp = input()
return out
def main():
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=5) as executor:
for i in range(len(fullAnalysis)):
text = fullAnalysis['QueryText'][i]
arg = 'most_similar'+ ' ' + text
#for item in executor.map(calculateScore, arg):
output = executor.map(calculateScore, arg)
return output
if __name__ == "__main__":
fullAnalysis = fetch_data()
results = main()
print(f'results: {results}')

The Python Global Interpreter Lock or GIL allows only one thread to hold control of the Python interpreter. Since your function calculateScore might be cpu-bound and requires the interpreter to execute its byte code, you may be gaining little by using threading. If, on the other hand, it were doing mostly I/O operations, it would be giving up the GIL for most of its running time allowing other threads to run. But that does not seem to be the case here. You probably should be using the ProcessPoolExecutor from concurrent.futures (try it both ways and see):
def main():
with ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=None) as executor:
the_futures = {}
for i in range(len(fullAnalysis)):
text = fullAnalysis['QueryText'][i]
arg = 'most_similar'+ ' ' + text
future = executor.submit(calculateScore, arg)
the_futures[future] = i # map future to request
for future in as_completed(the_futures): # results as they become available not necessarily the order of submission
i = the_futures[future] # the original index
result = future.result() # the result
If you omit the max_workers parameter (or specify a value of None) from the ProcessPoolExecutor constructor, the default will be the number of processors you have on your machine (not a bad default). There is no point in specifying a value larger than the number of processors you have.
If you do not need to tie the future back to the original request, then the_futures can just be a list to which But simplest yest in not even to bother to use the as_completed method:
def main():
with ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=5) as executor:
the_futures = []
for i in range(len(fullAnalysis)):
text = fullAnalysis['QueryText'][i]
arg = 'most_similar'+ ' ' + text
future = executor.submit(calculateScore, arg)
the_futures.append(future)
# wait for the completion of all the results and return them all:
results = [f.result() for f in the_futures()] # results in creation order
return results
It should be mentioned that code that launches the ProcessPoolExecutor functions should be in a block governed by a if __name__ = '__main__':. If it isn't you will get into a recursive loop with each subprocess launching the ProcessPoolExecutor. But that seems to be the case here. Perhaps you meant to use the ProcessPoolExecutor all along?
Also:
I don't know what the line ...
model = gensim.models.Word2Vec.load('w2v_model_bigdata')
... in function calculateStore does. It may be the one i/o-bound statement. But this appears to be something that does not vary from call to call. If that is the case and model is not being modified in the function, shouldn't this statement be moved out of the function and computed just once? Then this function would clearly run faster (and be clearly cpu-bound).
Also:
The exception block ...
except KeyError as ke:
#print(str(ke) + "\n")
inp = input()
... is puzzling. You are inputting a value that will never be used right before returning. If this is to pause execution, there is no error message being output.

With Booboo assistance, I was able to update code to include ProcessPoolExecutor. Here is my updated code. Overall, processing has been speed up by more than 60%.
I did run into a processing issue and found this topic BrokenPoolProcess that addresses the issue.
output = {}
thePool = {}
def main(labelled_data, dictionaryRevised):
args = sys.argv[1:]
with ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=None) as executor:
for i in range(len(labelled_data)):
text = labelled_data['QueryText'][i]
arg = 'most_similar'+ ' '+ text
output = winprocess.submit(
executor, calculateScore, arg
)
thePool[output] = i #original index for future to request
for output in as_completed(thePool): # results as they become available not necessarily the order of submission
i = thePool[output] # the original index
text = labelled_data['QueryText'][i]
result = output.result() # the result
maximumKey = max(result.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1))[0]
maximumValue = result.get(maximumKey)
labelled_data['SimilarText'][i] = maximumKey
labelled_data['SimilarityScore'][i] = maximumValue
return labelled_data, dictionaryRevised
if __name__ == "__main__":
start = time.perf_counter()
print("Starting to evaluate Query Text for labelling...")
output_Labelled_Data, output_dictionary_revised = preProcessor()
output,dictionary = main(output_Labelled_Data, output_dictionary_revised)
finish = time.perf_counter()
print(f'Finished in {round(finish-start, 2)} second(s)')

Multiprocessing in python - processes not closing after completing

I have a Process pool in python that is starting processes as normal, however, I have just realized that these processes are not closed after the completion (I know that they completed as the last statement is a file write).
Below the code, with an example function ppp:
from multiprocessing import Pool
import itertools
def ppp(element):
window,day = element
print(window,day)
time.sleep(10)
if __name__ == '__main__': ##The line marked
print('START')
start_time = current_milli_time()
days = ['0808', '0810', '0812', '0813', '0814', '0817', '0818', '0827']
windows = [1000,2000,3000,4000,5000,10000,15000, 20000,30000,60000,120000,180000]
processes_args = list(itertools.product(windows, days))
pool = Pool(8)
results = pool.map(ppp, processes_args)
pool.close()
pool.join()
print('END', current_milli_time()-start_time)
I am working on Linux, Ubuntu 16.04. Everything was working fine before I added the line marked in the example. I am wondering if that behavior can be related to the missing of a return statement. Anyway, that is what looks like my 'htop':
As you can see, no process is closed, but all have completed their work.
I found that related question: Python Multiprocessing pool.close() and join() does not close processes, however, I have not understood if the solution to this problem is to use map_async instead of map.
EDIT: real function code:
def process_day(element):
window,day = element
noise = 0.2
print('Processing day:', day,', window:', window)
individual_files = glob.glob('datan/'+day+'/*[0-9].csv')
individual = readDataset(individual_files)
label_time = individual.loc[(individual['LABEL_O'] != -2) | (individual['LABEL_F'] != -2), 'TIME']
label_time = list(np.unique(list(label_time)))
individual = individual[individual['TIME'].isin(label_time)]
#Saving IDs for further processing
individual['ID'] = individual['COLLAR']
#Time variable in seconds for aggregation and merging
individual['TIME_S'] = individual['TIME'].copy()
noise_x = np.random.normal(0,noise,len(individual))
noise_y = np.random.normal(0,noise,len(individual))
noise_z = np.random.normal(0,noise,len(individual))
individual['X_AXIS'] = individual['X_AXIS'] + noise_x
individual['Y_AXIS'] = individual['Y_AXIS'] + noise_y
individual['Z_AXIS'] = individual['Z_AXIS'] + noise_z
#Time syncronization (applying milliseconds for time series processing)
print('Time syncronization:')
with progressbar.ProgressBar(max_value=len(individual.groupby('ID'))) as bar:
for baboon,df_baboon in individual.groupby('ID'):
times = list(df_baboon['TIME'].values)
d = Counter(times)
result = []
for timestamp in np.unique(times):
for i in range(0,d[timestamp]):
result.append(str(timestamp+i*1000/d[timestamp]))
individual.loc[individual['ID'] == baboon,'TIME'] = result
bar.update(1)
#Time series process
ts_process = time_series_processing(window, 'TIME_S', individual, 'COLLAR', ['COLLAR', 'TIME', 'X_AXIS','Y_AXIS','Z_AXIS'])
#Aggregation and tsfresh
ts_process.do_process()
individual = ts_process.get_processed_dataframe()
individual.to_csv('noise2/processed_data/'+str(window)+'/agg/'+str(day)+'.csv', index = False)
#NEtwork inference process
ni = network_inference_process(individual, 'TIME_S_mean')
#Inference
ni.do_process()
final = ni.get_processed_dataframe()
final.to_csv('noise2/processed_data/'+str(window)+'/net/'+str(day)+'.csv', index = False)
#Saving not aggregated ground truth
ground_truth = final[['ID_mean', 'TIME_S_mean', 'LABEL_O_values', 'LABEL_F_values']].copy()
#Neighbor features process
neighbors_features_f = ni.get_neighbor_features(final, 'TIME_S_mean', 'ID_mean')
neighbors_features_f = neighbors_features_f.drop(['LABEL_O_values_n', 'LABEL_F_values_n'], axis=1)
neighbors_features_f.to_csv('noise2/processed_data/'+str(window)+'/net/'+str(day)+'_neigh.csv', index = False)
# Final features dataframe
final_neigh = pd.merge(final, neighbors_features_f, how='left', left_on=['TIME_S_mean','ID_mean'], right_on = ['TIME_S_mean_n','BABOON_NODE_n'])
final_neigh.to_csv('noise2/processed_data/'+str(window)+'/complete/'+str(day)+'.csv', index = False)
return
So as you can see, the last statement is a write to file, and it is executed by all the processes, I do not actually think that the problem is inside this function.

Converting graph traversal to multiprocessing in Python

I've been working on a graph traversal algorithm over a simple network and I'd like to run it using multiprocessing since it it going to require a lot of I/O bounded calls when I scale it over the full network. The simple version runs pretty fast:
already_seen = {}
already_seen_get = already_seen.get
GH_add_node = GH.add_node
GH_add_edge = GH.add_edge
GH_has_node = GH.has_node
GH_has_edge = GH.has_edge
def graph_user(user, depth=0):
logger.debug("Searching for %s", user)
logger.debug("At depth %d", depth)
users_to_read = followers = following = []
if already_seen_get(user):
logging.debug("Already seen %s", user)
return None
result = [x.value for x in list(view[user])]
if result:
result = result[0]
following = result['following']
followers = result['followers']
users_to_read = set().union(following, followers)
if not GH_has_node(user):
logger.debug("Adding %s to graph", user)
GH_add_node(user)
for follower in users_to_read:
if not GH_has_node(follower):
GH_add_node(follower)
logger.debug("Adding %s to graph", follower)
if depth < max_depth:
graph_user(follower, depth + 1)
if GH_has_edge(follower, user):
GH[follower][user]['weight'] += 1
else:
GH_add_edge(user, follower, {'weight': 1})
Its actually significantly faster than my multiprocessing version:
to_write = Queue()
to_read = Queue()
to_edge = Queue()
already_seen = Queue()
def fetch_user():
seen = {}
read_get = to_read.get
read_put = to_read.put
write_put = to_write.put
edge_put = to_edge.put
seen_get = seen.get
while True:
try:
logging.debug("Begging for a user")
user = read_get(timeout=1)
if seen_get(user):
continue
logging.debug("Adding %s", user)
seen[user] = True
result = [x.value for x in list(view[user])]
write_put(user, timeout=1)
if result:
result = result.pop()
logging.debug("Got user %s and result %s", user, result)
following = result['following']
followers = result['followers']
users_to_read = list(set().union(following, followers))
[edge_put((user, x, {'weight': 1})) for x in users_to_read]
[read_put(y, timeout=1) for y in users_to_read if not seen_get(y)]
except Empty:
logging.debug("Fetches complete")
return
def write_node():
users = []
users_app = users.append
write_get = to_write.get
while True:
try:
user = write_get(timeout=1)
logging.debug("Writing user %s", user)
users_app(user)
except Empty:
logging.debug("Users complete")
return users
def write_edge():
edges = []
edges_app = edges.append
edge_get = to_edge.get
while True:
try:
edge = edge_get(timeout=1)
logging.debug("Writing edge %s", edge)
edges_app(edge)
except Empty:
logging.debug("Edges Complete")
return edges
if __name__ == '__main__':
pool = Pool(processes=1)
to_read.put(me)
pool.apply_async(fetch_user)
users = pool.apply_async(write_node)
edges = pool.apply_async(write_edge)
GH.add_weighted_edges_from(edges.get())
GH.add_nodes_from(users.get())
pool.close()
pool.join()
What I can't figure out is why the single process version is so much faster. In theory, the multiprocessing version should be writing and reading simultaneously. I suspect there is lock contention on the queues and that is the cause of the slow down but I don't really have any evidence of that. When I scale the number of fetch_user processes it seems to run faster, but then I have issues with synchronizing the data seen across them. So some thoughts I've had are
Is this even a good application for
multiprocessing? I was originally
using it because I wanted to be able
to fetch from the db in parallell.
How can I avoid resource contention when reading and writing from the same queue?
Did I miss some obvious caveat for the design?
What can I do to share a lookup table between the readers so I don't keep fetching the same user twice?
When increasing the number of fetching processes they writers eventually lock. It looks like the write queue is not being written to, but the read queue is full. Is there a better way to handle this situation than with timeouts and exception handling?

Queues in Python are synchronized. This means that only one thread at a time can read/write, this will definitely provoke a bottleneck in your app.
One better solution is to distribute the processing based on a hash function and assign the processing to the threads with a simple module operation. So for instance if you have 4 threads you could have 4 queues:
thread_queues = []
for i in range(4):
thread_queues = Queue()
for user in user_list:
user_hash=hash(user.user_id) #hash in here is just shortcut to some standard hash utility
thread_id = user_hash % 4
thread_queues[thread_id].put(user)
# From here ... your pool of threads access thread_queues but each thread ONLY accesses
# one queue based on a numeric id given to each of them.
Most of hash functions will distribute evenly your data. I normally use UMAC. But maybe you can just try with the hash function from the Python String implementation.
Another improvement would be to avoid the use of Queues and use a non-sync object, such a list.