ComfyUI fails to start with database error since #11315

[Leseratte10]

Custom Node Testing

• I have tried disabling custom nodes and the issue persists (see how to disable custom nodes if you need help)

Expected Behavior

Updated ComfyUI with git pull, installed new requirements. Now fails to start.

Actual Behavior

Failed to start with database errors:

Context impl SQLiteImpl.
Will assume non-transactional DDL.
Assets scan(roots=['models']) completed in 0.020s (created=0, skipped_existing=0, total_seen=11)
Failed to initialize database. Please ensure you have installed the latest requirements. If the error persists, please report this as in future the database will be required: Can't use explicit RETURNING for bulk INSERT operation with sqlite+pysqlite backend; executemany with RETURNING is not enabled for this dialect.

Steps to Reproduce

This isn't a bug with custom nodes, ComfyUI doesn't even start properly, and the error also occurs with "--disable-all-custom-nodes".

I deleted my ComfyUI folder and cloned it again, same error. I deleted my venv and created it again, same error.

I did a git bisect and the first bad commit is 1dc3da6 which is part of PR #11315.

I checked bug #11754 which seems related but is probably a different bug.

If I revert back to version 114fc73 (one commit before the one mentioned above), ComfyUI starts and works again.

Debug Logs

$ python3 main.py 
Checkpoint files will always be loaded safely.
Total VRAM 11004 MB, total RAM 64215 MB
pytorch version: 2.9.1+cu128
Set vram state to: NORMAL_VRAM
Device: cuda:0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti : cudaMallocAsync
Using async weight offloading with 2 streams
Enabled pinned memory 61003.0
working around nvidia conv3d memory bug.
WARNING: You need pytorch with cu130 or higher to use optimized CUDA operations.
Found comfy_kitchen backend eager: {'available': True, 'disabled': False, 'unavailable_reason': None, 'capabilities': ['apply_rope', 'apply_rope1', 'dequantize_nvfp4', 'dequantize_per_tensor_fp8', 'quantize_nvfp4', 'quantize_per_tensor_fp8', 'scaled_mm_nvfp4']}
Found comfy_kitchen backend cuda: {'available': True, 'disabled': True, 'unavailable_reason': None, 'capabilities': ['apply_rope', 'apply_rope1', 'dequantize_nvfp4', 'dequantize_per_tensor_fp8', 'quantize_nvfp4', 'quantize_per_tensor_fp8', 'scaled_mm_nvfp4']}
Found comfy_kitchen backend triton: {'available': True, 'disabled': True, 'unavailable_reason': None, 'capabilities': ['apply_rope', 'apply_rope1', 'dequantize_nvfp4', 'dequantize_per_tensor_fp8', 'quantize_nvfp4', 'quantize_per_tensor_fp8']}
Using pytorch attention
Python version: 3.11.10 (main, Sep  7 2024, 18:35:42) [GCC 9.4.0]
ComfyUI version: 0.8.2
ComfyUI frontend version: 1.36.13
[Prompt Server] web root: /home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/comfyui_frontend_package/static

Import times for custom nodes:
   0.0 seconds: /home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/custom_nodes/websocket_image_save.py

Context impl SQLiteImpl.
Will assume non-transactional DDL.
Assets scan(roots=['models']) completed in 0.020s (created=0, skipped_existing=0, total_seen=11)
Failed to initialize database. Please ensure you have installed the latest requirements. If the error persists, please report this as in future the database will be required: Can't use explicit RETURNING for bulk INSERT operation with sqlite+pysqlite backend; executemany with RETURNING is not enabled for this dialect.
Starting server

To see the GUI go to: http://127.0.0.1:8188
Error handling request from 127.0.0.1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/aiohttp/web_protocol.py", line 510, in _handle_request
    resp = await request_handler(request)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/aiohttp/web_app.py", line 569, in _handle
    return await handler(request)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/aiohttp/web_middlewares.py", line 117, in impl
    return await handler(request)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/middleware/cache_middleware.py", line 27, in cache_control
    response: web.Response = await handler(request)
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/server.py", line 83, in deprecation_warning
    response: web.Response = await handler(request)
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/server.py", line 173, in origin_only_middleware
    response = await handler(request)
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/server.py", line 689, in get_object_info
    seed_assets(["models"])
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/app/assets/scanner.py", line 82, in seed_assets
    result = seed_from_paths_batch(sess, specs=specs, owner_id="")
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/ComfyUI/app/assets/database/bulk_ops.py", line 102, in seed_from_paths_batch
    winners_by_path.update((session.execute(ins_state, chunk)).scalars().all())
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 2365, in execute
    return self._execute_internal(
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 2251, in _execute_internal
    result: Result[Any] = compile_state_cls.orm_execute_statement(
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/bulk_persistence.py", line 1292, in orm_execute_statement
    result = _bulk_insert(
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/bulk_persistence.py", line 222, in _bulk_insert
    result = persistence._emit_insert_statements(
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/florian/comfy_ggufs/.venv_neu/lib/python3.11/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/persistence.py", line 1107, in _emit_insert_statements
    raise sa_exc.InvalidRequestError(
sqlalchemy.exc.InvalidRequestError: Can't use explicit RETURNING for bulk INSERT operation with sqlite+pysqlite backend; executemany with RETURNING is not enabled for this dialect.

[Leseratte10]

@Kosinkadink

I found a related forum post here that might explain the issue.

Support for the RETURNING statement was only added in sqlite3 version 3.35.0, but my system has 3.31.1 since I'm still running Python 3.11 and sqlite3 comes bundled with the python standard library.

There's apparently a newer version of that library available on PyPi but this requires some trickery to make it load this one instead of the builtin one, and since this seems to be a dependency of SQLAlchemy and not a direct import from within the ComfyUI code this is going to be complicated.

---

Is there a way the code in the pull request could be rewritten to not rely on this feature if it's not available?
If that is not possible, I guess that means that ComfyUI will no longer support Python3.11 and will require 3.12 or newer. In that case, can this be added to the Readme? I have not found any strict requirement for python >= 3.12 in the readme, only some vague "3.13 should be supported but if there's issues try 3.12 instead" statement.

[Kosinkadink]

I will rewrite the sql so that it will remain compatible with python 3.10+, thank you for the report (and the original comment on the PR).

[Kosinkadink]

@Leseratte10 the PR to rewrite the SQL has been merged, could you try it on your setup to see if it works? I was unable to reproduce your issue on python 3.10.19 and 3.11.14 both before and after the PR, so I had no way to confirm that your specific problem is fixed.

[Leseratte10]

Thanks, I can confirm that with this version everything is working again.