asyncio

Scrapy has partial support for asyncio. After you install the asyncio reactor, you may use asyncio and asyncio-powered libraries in any coroutine.

Installing the asyncio reactor

To enable asyncio support, your TWISTED_REACTOR setting needs to be set to 'twisted.internet.asyncioreactor.AsyncioSelectorReactor', which is the default value.

If you are using AsyncCrawlerRunner or CrawlerRunner, you also need to install the AsyncioSelectorReactor reactor manually. You can do that using install_reactor():

install_reactor("twisted.internet.asyncioreactor.AsyncioSelectorReactor")

Handling a pre-installed reactor

twisted.internet.reactor and some other Twisted imports install the default Twisted reactor as a side effect. Once a Twisted reactor is installed, it is not possible to switch to a different reactor at run time.

If you configure the asyncio Twisted reactor and, at run time, Scrapy complains that a different reactor is already installed, chances are you have some such imports in your code.

You can usually fix the issue by moving those offending module-level Twisted imports to the method or function definitions where they are used. For example, if you have something like:

from twisted.internet import reactor


def my_function():
    reactor.callLater(...)

Switch to something like:

def my_function():
    from twisted.internet import reactor

    reactor.callLater(...)

Alternatively, you can try to manually install the asyncio reactor, with install_reactor(), before those imports happen.

Integrating Deferred code and asyncio code

Coroutine functions can await on Deferreds by wrapping them into asyncio.Future objects. Scrapy provides two helpers for this:

Tip

If you don’t need to support reactors other than the default AsyncioSelectorReactor, you can use deferred_to_future(), otherwise you should use maybe_deferred_to_future().

Tip

If you need to use these functions in code that aims to be compatible with lower versions of Scrapy that do not provide these functions, down to Scrapy 2.0 (earlier versions do not support asyncio), you can copy the implementation of these functions into your own code.

Coroutines and futures can be wrapped into Deferreds (for example, when a Scrapy API requires passing a Deferred to it) using the following helpers:

Enforcing asyncio as a requirement

If you are writing a component that requires asyncio to work, use scrapy.utils.asyncio.is_asyncio_available() to enforce it as a requirement. For example:

from scrapy.utils.asyncio import is_asyncio_available


class MyComponent:
    def __init__(self):
        if not is_asyncio_available():
            raise ValueError(
                f"{MyComponent.__qualname__} requires the asyncio support. "
                f"Make sure you have configured the asyncio reactor in the "
                f"TWISTED_REACTOR setting. See the asyncio documentation "
                f"of Scrapy for more information."
            )

Using Scrapy without a Twisted reactor

Added in version 2.15.0.

Warning

This is currently experimental and may not be suitable for production use.

It’s possible to use Scrapy without installing a Twisted reactor at all, by setting the TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED setting to False. In this mode Scrapy will use the asyncio event loop directly, and most of the Scrapy functionality will work in the same way.

Doing this provides several benefits in certain use cases:

A Twisted reactor, once stopped, cannot be started again. This prevents, for example, using several instances of AsyncCrawlerProcess in the same process when they use a reactor, but with TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED=False it becomes possible.
There may be limitations imposed by AsyncioSelectorReactor and related Twisted code, such as the requirement of using SelectorEventLoop on Windows (see Windows-specific notes), that do not apply if the reactor is not used.
AsyncioSelectorReactor manages the underlying event loop, and while AsyncCrawlerRunner can use a pre-existing reactor which, in turn, can use a pre-existing event loop, it’s easier to use AsyncCrawlerRunner with a pre-existing loop directly.
Omitting the reactor machinery may improve performance and reliability.

Limitations

As some Scrapy features and components require a reactor, they don’t work and are disabled without it. Replacements that don’t require a reactor may be added in future Scrapy versions. The following features are not available:

The default HTTP(S) download handler, HTTP11DownloadHandler (this is likely the biggest difference; Scrapy provides an HTTP(S) download handler that doesn’t require a reactor and will be used instead of it: HttpxDownloadHandler)
FTPDownloadHandler
H2DownloadHandler
Telnet Console
CrawlerRunner and CrawlerProcess (AsyncCrawlerProcess and AsyncCrawlerRunner are available)
Twisted-specific DNS resolvers (the DNS_RESOLVER setting)
User and 3rd-party code that requires a reactor (see below for examples)

Note that importing Twisted modules and, among other things, creating and using Deferred objects doesn’t require a reactor, so code that uses Deferred, Failure and some other Twisted APIs will not necessarily stop working.

Other differences

When TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED is set to False, Scrapy will change the defaults of some other settings:

TELNETCONSOLE_ENABLED is set to False.
The "http" and "https" keys in DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS_BASE are set to "scrapy.core.downloader.handlers._httpx.HttpxDownloadHandler".
The "ftp" key in DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS_BASE is set to None.

Thus, HttpxDownloadHandler is used by default for making HTTP(S) requests. Please refer to its documentation for its differences and limitations compared to HTTP11DownloadHandler.

Additionally, AsyncCrawlerProcess will install a meta path finder that prevents twisted.internet.reactor from being imported.

Adding support to existing code

Code that doesn’t directly use Twisted APIs or APIs that depend on Twisted ones doesn’t need special support for running without a reactor.

Here are some examples of APIs and patterns that need a replacement:

Using reactor.callLater() for sleeping or delayed calls. You can use asyncio.loop.call_later() instead.
Using twisted.internet.threads.deferToThread(), reactor.callFromThread() and related APIs to execute code in other threads. You can use asyncio.to_thread(), asyncio.loop.call_soon_threadsafe() and related APIs instead.
Using twisted.internet.task.LoopingCall for scheduling repeated tasks. As there is no direct replacement in the standard library, you may need to write your own one using asyncio.sleep() in a task.
Using Twisted network client and server APIs (reactor.connectTCP(), reactor.listenTCP(), twisted.web.client, twisted.mail.smtp etc.). You can use other built-in or 3rd-party libraries for this.
Using CrawlerProcess or CrawlerRunner. You should use AsyncCrawlerProcess or AsyncCrawlerRunner respectively instead.
Checking whether asyncio support is available with scrapy.utils.reactor.is_asyncio_reactor_installed(). You should use scrapy.utils.asyncio.is_asyncio_available() instead.

Scrapy provides unified helpers for some of these examples:

If your code needs to know whether the reactor is available, you can either check for the value of the TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED setting (you need access to the Crawler instance to do this) or use the following function:

In general, code that doesn’t use the reactor (directly or indirectly) can be used unmodified both with the asyncio reactor and without a reactor. This includes code that converts Deferreds to futures and vice versa as described in Integrating Deferred code and asyncio code.

Troubleshooting

ImportError: Import of twisted.internet.reactor is forbidden when running without a Twisted reactor […]: Scrapy is configured to run without a reactor, but some code imported twisted.internet.reactor, most likely because that code needs a reactor to be used. You need to stop using this code or set TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED back to True. It’s also possible that the reactor isn’t really needed but was installed due to the problem described in Handling a pre-installed reactor, in which case it should be enough to fix the problematic imports.

RuntimeError: TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED is False but a Twisted reactor is installed: Scrapy is configured to run without a reactor, but a reactor is already installed before the Scrapy code is executed. If you are trying to set TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED via per-spider settings, it’s currently unsupported.

RuntimeError: We expected a Twisted reactor to be installed but it isn’t: Scrapy is configured to run with a reactor and not to install one, but a reactor wasn’t installed before the Scrapy code is executed. If you are trying to set TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED via per-spider settings, it’s currently unsupported.

RuntimeError: <class> doesn’t support TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED=False: The listed class cannot be used with TWISTED_REACTOR_ENABLED set to False. There may be a replacement in the documentation above or the documentation of the affected class.

Windows-specific notes

The Windows implementation of asyncio can use two event loop implementations, ProactorEventLoop (default) and SelectorEventLoop. However, only SelectorEventLoop works with Twisted.

Scrapy changes the event loop class to SelectorEventLoop automatically when you change the TWISTED_REACTOR setting or call install_reactor().

Note

Other libraries you use may require ProactorEventLoop, e.g. because it supports subprocesses (this is the case with playwright), so you cannot use them together with Scrapy on Windows (but you should be able to use them on WSL or native Linux).

Note

This problem doesn’t apply when not using the reactor, see Using Scrapy without a Twisted reactor.

Using custom asyncio loops

You can also use custom asyncio event loops with the asyncio reactor. Set the ASYNCIO_EVENT_LOOP setting to the import path of the desired event loop class to use it instead of the default asyncio event loop.

Switching to a non-asyncio reactor

If for some reason your code doesn’t work with the asyncio reactor, you can use a different reactor by setting the TWISTED_REACTOR setting to its import path (e.g. 'twisted.internet.epollreactor.EPollReactor') or to None, which will use the default reactor for your platform. If you are using AsyncCrawlerRunner or AsyncCrawlerProcess you also need to switch to their Deferred-based counterparts: CrawlerRunner or CrawlerProcess respectively.