Problem with Mathics3 Live

[paraskevi-f]

Hello,

I am experiencing an issue with Mathics3 Live. The kernel does not load and I receive error.

It seems that the Mathics Jupyter extension fails to load and the environment is not usable.

Could you please help me resolve this issue or confirm if Mathics Online currently supports this setup?

Thank you.

[rocky]

Yes, Mathics3 Live is currently broken.

Mathics3 loads the most recent version of Mathics3, 10.0.0, which has changed in the last week or two. The API between 10.0.0 and 9.x is significantly different.

Adjustments may need to be made in Mathics3-Live not here as well as in mathics-core. An issue probably needs to be opened there to track things.

[paraskevi-f]

Hello,

Thank you for your response.

Do you have an estimate on when this issue might be resolved? I am planning to use Mathics in a teaching environment and would appreciate knowing whether a fix is expected soon.

In the meantime, could you please advise on a stable way to install and use Mathics locally? I have tried setting it up, but I am encountering issues there as well.

Is there a recommended Python version or installation method that works reliably?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[rocky]

Right now, the Docker image on dockerhub might be the easiest way to get the most recent version.

You read this right?

Adjustments need to be made in Mathics3-notebook-frontends, not here. An issue probably needs to be opened there to track things.

It is hoped in open-source projects that those who use the project contribute in whatever way they can. This reduces the amount for each individual.

For Mathics3-notebook-frontends, @davidar is the expert.

I opened a Pull Request to go back to the last 9.x release. See Mathics3/Mathics3-notebook-frontends#5

I am planning to use Mathics in a teaching environment and would appreciate knowing whether a fix is expected soon.

Were you to follow the Bug report form at https://github.com/Mathics3/mathics-core/issues/new/choose

You would see that there is a section for "Priority" and "Context" that elicits the information that is somewhat given now.

When exactly do you start teaching? And what's the course? This helps me prioritize my work schedule.

[rocky]

The error for 10.x that I am currently seeing is:

File /lib/python3.12/site-packages/mathics/session.py:37, in autoload_files(defs, root_dir_path, autoload_dir, block_global_definitions)
     32 """
     33 Load Mathics3 code from the autoload-folder files.
     34 """
     35 from mathics.eval.files_io.files import eval_Get
---> 37 encoding = defs.get_ownvalue("System`$CharacterEncoding")
     38 py_encoding = encoding.value if isinstance(encoding, String) else "UTF-8"
     40 for root, _, files in os.walk(osp_join(root_dir_path, autoload_dir)):

This is not defined because it is in a sandboxed environment, and therefore, autoload/settings.m is not read. We can easily provide a way to set this information in a sandboxed environment. Or we can (additionally) wrap this in a try/except.

[paraskevi-f]

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I will also open a related issue in Mathics3-notebook-frontends.

I am planning to start teaching with Mathics tomorrow or Tuesday in an undergraduate mathematics course (Mathematical Modelling), so this issue is quite urgent for me.

Do you think the rollback to version 9.x or another fix might be available in the coming days?

Regarding your suggestion:
Is there a simple guide for using the Docker image? I am not very familiar with Docker and would need a straightforward setup suitable for classroom use.

Alternatively, is there a recommended stable local setup (e.g. Python version and packages) that currently works without issues?

Also, since the issue seems to be related to the sandboxed environment (where autoload/settings.m is not loaded), is there any temporary workaround to make Mathics usable in this setup?

For example:

Is it possible to manually set System$CharacterEncoding` in this environment?
Or to bypass this error until an official fix is released?

I would greatly appreciate any temporary solution, as I need to use Mathics for teaching very soon.

Thank you again for your time and support.

[rocky]

Two other online Mathematica alternatives are https://symjaweb.appspot.com/ and https://woxi.ad-si.com/

[paraskevi-f]

Thank you very much for your help — this is very helpful! I really appreciate it.

[rocky]

Mathics3-live is now functional again. If you run into any further problems, please open a new issue (or issues) and narrow the problems.