🐛 Bug: requirements with version ranges are installed via shell without quoting (< / > interpreted as redirects)

[anxety-solo]

Description

After recent updates of the extension, dependency installation started to fail on a clean setup.

The problem is not reported clearly as a packaging / shell issue, but instead surfaces as confusing errors like cannot open 15, cannot open 3.0.0, etc.

This appears to be caused by installing requirements with version ranges without proper shell-escaping or argument splitting, e.g.:

pip install av>=14,<15

which is interpreted by /bin/sh as input redirection (<15) instead of a version specifier.

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Environment

• WebUI: classic
• Python: 3.11.13 (standalone build)
• Python runtime: VENV created from standalone Python build
• OS: Linux (Google Colab)
• pip: from venv

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Error log

Python 3.11.13 (main, Oct  7 2025, 15:35:45) [Clang 20.1.4 ]
Version: classic

Installing sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: av>=14,<15
Couldn't install sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: av>=14,<15.
Command: "/root/venv/bin/python3" -m pip install av>=14,<15 --prefer-binary
Error code: 2
stderr: /bin/sh: 1: cannot open 15: No such file

Installing sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: requests>=2.0.0,<3.0.0
stderr: /bin/sh: 1: cannot open 3.0.0: No such file

Installing sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: numpy>=1.10.0,<3.0.0
stderr: /bin/sh: 1: cannot open 3.0.0: No such file

Installing sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: hnswlib>=0.0.0,<1.0.0
stderr: /bin/sh: 1: cannot open 1.0.0: No such file

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Expected behavior: Requirements with version ranges (comma-separated) should be installed correctly

[zanllp]

You can try manually installing the relevant dependencies first.

[anxety-solo]

You can try manually installing the relevant dependencies first.

Yes, that's the first thing that comes to mind, but the extension will still display a similar message >_<'

[zanllp]

This issue has been fixed in #882, you can give it another try.

[anxety-solo]

Yes, the changes are working, and the specific libraries have been installed correctly.

The only thing is that one of the libraries cannot be installed, but this is most likely a problem with the standalone build or Python version rather than with the extension itself.

Do you know how to solve this?

Python 3.11.13 (main, Oct  7 2025, 15:35:45) [Clang 20.1.4 ]
Version: classic
Installing sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: hnswlib>=0.0.0,<1.0.0
Couldn't install sd-webui-infinite-image-browsing requirement: hnswlib>=0.0.0,<1.0.0.
Command: "/root/venv/bin/python3" -m pip install "hnswlib>=0.0.0,<1.0.0" --prefer-binary
Error code: 1
stdout: Collecting hnswlib<1.0.0,>=0.0.0
  Using cached hnswlib-0.8.0.tar.gz (36 kB)
  Installing build dependencies: started
  Installing build dependencies: finished with status 'done'
  Getting requirements to build wheel: started
  Getting requirements to build wheel: finished with status 'done'
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml): started
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml): finished with status 'done'
Requirement already satisfied: numpy in /root/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages (from hnswlib<1.0.0,>=0.0.0) (1.26.4)
Building wheels for collected packages: hnswlib
  Building wheel for hnswlib (pyproject.toml): started
  Building wheel for hnswlib (pyproject.toml): finished with status 'error'
Failed to build hnswlib

stderr:   error: subprocess-exited-with-error
  
  × Building wheel for hnswlib (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> No available output.
  
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for hnswlib
error: failed-wheel-build-for-install

× Failed to build installable wheels for some pyproject.toml based projects
╰─> hnswlib

Warning: Failed to install hnswlib>=0.0.0,<1.0.0, some preprocessors may not work.

[zanllp]

The compilation issue with hnswlib is likely due to an incomplete C++ build environment (e.g., missing gcc/g++, Python dev headers, or other dependencies). This causes pip to fail when trying to build from source, as no pre-built wheel is available for your specific Python version/platform combo.

For more details and potential solutions, please check these related issues in the hnswlib repo:

• https://github.com/Error installing hnswlib nmslib/hnswlib#403
• https://github.com/Could not build wheels for hnswlib, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects nmslib/hnswlib#504

Note that hnswlib is an optional dependency used only for the experimental topic clustering/search feature. If it fails to install, the core image browsing functionality will still work fine. You can skip it or try installing build tools (e.g., apt install build-essential python3-dev on Ubuntu) and retry. If you have more environment details, feel free to share!

[anxety-solo]

Unfortunately, none of the solutions you suggested helped.
Since you mentioned that this library is only needed for an experimental feature, in my case it would probably be easier to just remove it from the requirements.txt file — and then the error won't bother me anymore :3

As for details about the environment, I'm not sure what I can tell you about it... it was created from https://github.com/astral-sh/ python-build-standalone/releases/download/20251007/cpython-3.11.13+20251007-x86_64_v3-unknown-linux-gnu-install_only.tar.gz - perhaps the issue lies with the Python build itself...

UPD: As for the environment itself (Google Colab), this library is installed and compiled on it, which clearly indicates the incompleteness of the standalone python build

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edit:

After much trial and error, the solution to install hnswlib was finally found (in my case):

!sudo apt-get update
!sudo apt-get install -y build-essential python3-dev
!sudo apt-get install -y g++ gcc

!CC=gcc CXX=g++ pip install hnswlib

! is at the beginning because this is the Google Colab environment

Perhaps this will be useful to someone~

[zanllp]

We've added support for the IIB_SKIP_OPTIONAL_DEPS=1 environment variable to gracefully skip hnswlib installation, and improved error messages to guide you through the troubleshooting process if you prefer to install it anyway.