I have not read all the details, but the pickled environment contains the full path to the project.
And at https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/_modules/sphinx/environment.html you can find the lines def setup(self, app: Sphinx) -> None: """Set up BuildEnvironment object.""" if self.version and self.version != app.registry.get_envversion(app): raise BuildEnvironmentError(__('build environment version not current')) if self.srcdir and self.srcdir != app.srcdir: raise BuildEnvironmentError(__('source directory has changed')) This BuildEnvironment.setup() is called from sphinx.application: (see https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/_modules/sphinx/application.html) def _load_existing_env(self, filename: str) -> BuildEnvironment: try: with progress_message(__('loading pickled environment')): with open(filename, 'rb') as f: env = pickle.load(f) env.setup(self) self._fresh_env_used = False except Exception as err: logger.info(__('failed: %s'), err) env = self._create_fresh_env() return env The environment "env" loaded from the pickled file carries the absolute path to the former location. On the other hand the app.srcdir above contains the absolute path to the new location. Hence after doing "cp -a originalproject copiedproject" one gets on next build attempt in new directory: loading pickled environment... failed failed: source directory has changed Also other files under _build/doctrees such as index.doctree contain absolute paths -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sphinx-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sphinx-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sphinx-users/u201aj%24qpg%241%40ciao.gmane.io.
