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Add documentation warning: Don’t use torch.profiler.profile context manager around Trainer methods #20864

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@KAVYANSHTYAGI KAVYANSHTYAGI commented May 28, 2025

What does this PR do?

This PR adds a prominent documentation warning to the Trainer class docstring (and optionally Profiler docs) to alert users not to wrap Trainer.fit(), Trainer.validate(), or similar methods inside a manual torch.profiler.profile context manager.
Instead, users are advised to use the profiler argument in the Trainer constructor, which is the robust and officially supported method for profiling with Lightning.

This change aims to prevent a common source of cryptic internal errors and crashes reported by users who attempt to manually profile the Trainer, and improves developer experience by making the correct usage obvious in the docs.

Fixes #20779
(You can fill in the relevant issue if one exists, such as #16958)

This PR does not introduce any breaking changes.

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Was this discussed/agreed via a GitHub issue?
Yes, this has been discussed in Lightning issues and user forums (see: #16958 and PyTorch #88472).

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References
PyTorch Issue #88472

Lightning Issue #16958

StackOverflow community discussion

Thanks for considering this! This documentation improvement should help prevent many user headaches and support requests.


📚 Documentation preview 📚: https://pytorch-lightning--20864.org.readthedocs.build/en/20864/

@github-actions github-actions bot added docs Documentation related pl Generic label for PyTorch Lightning package labels May 28, 2025

**References:**
- https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/88472
- https://github.com/Lightning-AI/lightning/issues/16958
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why this reference?

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These issues capture user reports and maintainer confirmations of the error caused by using torch.profiler.profile around Trainer methods, just supporting the reason for this doc warning.

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Can you please elaborate on how this Bump pytest from 7.2.0 to 7.2.2 in /requirements #16958 captures the profiler's issue?

@KAVYANSHTYAGI KAVYANSHTYAGI requested a review from Borda May 28, 2025 12:35
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Thanks for pointing out the confusion. I’ve removed the unrelated Lightning PR and forum links from the references, now only the directly relevant PyTorch issue is cited to support this documentation warning.

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Pytorch Profiler crashes while using it with Pytorch Lightning modules
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