BUG: Apply on axis=1 causes "daemonic processes are not allowed to have children" on some operations on Dask engine, or launches Ray instance

[data-makerman]

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• I have confirmed this bug exists on the latest released version of Modin.

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Reproducible Example

import modin.pandas as pd
import modin.config as cfg_modin

cfg_modin.Engine.put("dask")

def unworking_meaningless_row_operation(row):
    row_to_dict = row.to_dict()
    dict_to_row = pd.Series(row_to_dict)
    return dict_to_row

def fine_meaningless_row_operation(row):
    row = row.str.upper()
    return row

if __name__ == "__main__":
    df = pd.DataFrame(
        {
            "A": ["a", "b", "c", "d"],
            "B": [1, 2, 3, 4],
            "C": [1, 2, 3, 4],
            "D": [1, 2, 3, 4],
        }
    )

    df = df.apply(fine_meaningless_row_operation, axis=1)
    print("Fine worked fine")
    df = df.apply(unworking_meaningless_row_operation, axis=1)

Issue Description

When running a df.apply operation which uses a Series.to_dict() call on a Dask engine, I get a traceback telling me: AssertionError: daemonic processes are not allowed to have children. This was without Ray/modin[ray] installed. Other apply operations succeed.

Installing modin[ray] also causes this operation to succeed. Weirdly (to me), the first operation in the included reproducible example seems to run on the Dask engine before Modin automatically creates a Ray instance to handle the second operation.

Expected Behavior

The Dask engine should support all typical Pandas operations.

Error Logs

python -m rembe.benchmarks.minimal_test
Fine worked fine
UserWarning: Port 8787 is already in use.
Perhaps you already have a cluster running?
Hosting the HTTP server on port 44471 instead
2024-07-17 22:23:59,043 - distributed.nanny - ERROR - Failed to start process
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/nanny.py", line 452, in instantiate
    result = await self.process.start()
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/nanny.py", line 752, in start
    await self.process.start()
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/process.py", line 55, in _call_and_set_future
    res = func(*args, **kwargs)
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/process.py", line 215, in _start
    process.start()
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/multiprocessing/process.py", line 118, in start
    assert not _current_process._config.get('daemon'), \
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AssertionError: daemonic processes are not allowed to have children
2024-07-17 22:23:59,045 - distributed.nanny - ERROR - Failed to start process
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/nanny.py", line 452, in instantiate
    result = await self.process.start()
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/nanny.py", line 752, in start
    await self.process.start()
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/process.py", line 55, in _call_and_set_future
    res = func(*args, **kwargs)
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/site-packages/distributed/process.py", line 215, in _start
    process.start()
  File "/z/home/mxak/miniforge3/envs/datamesh_no_dl/lib/python3.12/multiprocessing/process.py", line 118, in start
    assert not _current_process._config.get('daemon'), \
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AssertionError: daemonic processes are not allowed to have children

Installed Versions

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit : 4815bc3
python : 3.12.4.final.0
python-bits : 64
OS : Linux
OS-release : 5.15.0-113-generic
Version : #123~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 12 17:33:13 UTC 2024
machine : x86_64
processor : x86_64
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : en_DK.UTF-8
LOCALE : en_DK.UTF-8

Modin dependencies

modin : 0.31.0+4.g4815bc32
ray : None
dask : 2024.7.0
distributed : 2024.7.0

pandas dependencies

pandas : 2.2.2
numpy : 1.26.4
pytz : 2024.1
dateutil : 2.9.0
setuptools : 70.3.0
pip : 24.0
Cython : None
pytest : 8.2.2
hypothesis : None
sphinx : None
blosc : None
feather : None
xlsxwriter : None
lxml.etree : None
html5lib : None
pymysql : None
psycopg2 : 2.9.9
jinja2 : 3.1.4
IPython : None
pandas_datareader : None
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : None
bottleneck : None
dataframe-api-compat : None
fastparquet : None
fsspec : 2024.6.1
gcsfs : None
matplotlib : None
numba : None
numexpr : None
odfpy : None
openpyxl : None
pandas_gbq : None
pyarrow : 16.1.0
pyreadstat : None
python-calamine : None
pyxlsb : None
s3fs : None
scipy : None
sqlalchemy : 2.0.31
tables : None
tabulate : None
xarray : None
xlrd : None
zstandard : 0.23.0
tzdata : 2024.1
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None

[devin-petersohn]

Great catch @data-makerman. I can reproduce this locally for Dask, but this type of error is not happening in Ray.