[inductor] TorchInductor does not correctly recognize the grad status of model code

[xuzhao9]

🐛 Describe the bug

At

pytorch/torch/_inductor/compile_fx.py

Line 1371 in 3061025

if config.freezing and not torch.is_grad_enabled():

, torchinductor finds torch.is_grad_enabled() is True even if the compiled code sets with torch.no_grad().

Reproduction script:

import torch
import torch.nn.functional as F

class TestModule(torch.nn.Module):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.conv1 = torch.nn.Conv2d(1, 20, 5)

    def forward(self, x):
        return F.relu(self.conv1(x))

model = TestModule()
example_inputs = torch.randn([1, 1, 10, 10]).cpu()

@torch.compile
def run(model, example_inputs):
    with torch.no_grad():
        # Check inductor grad status at
        # https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/blob/30610251ec7b8f7e0507df06c3aadbcf90658e0e/torch/_inductor/compile_fx.py#L1370
        # If we print `torch._inductor.config.cpp.weight_prepack` , torchinductor believes torch.is_grad_enabled() is False
        # Otherwise, torchinductor believes torch.is_grad_enabled() is True 
        # print("torch._inductor.config.cpp.weight_prepack", torch._inductor.config.cpp.weight_prepack)
        model(example_inputs)

run(model, example_inputs)

Versions

The latest nightly release (20240503).

cc @ezyang @msaroufim @bdhirsh @anijain2305 @chauhang @voznesenskym @penguinwu @EikanWang @jgong5 @Guobing-Chen @XiaobingSuper @zhuhaozhe @blzheng @wenzhe-nrv @jiayisunx @peterbell10 @ipiszy @yf225 @chenyang78 @kadeng @muchulee8 @ColinPeppler @amjames @desertfire

[xuzhao9]

This is reported by a torchbench user: pytorch/benchmark#2253

[bdhirsh]

The simplest workaround is to move the no_grad() outside of your compiled region:

with torch.no_grad():
    run(model, example_inputs)

But I think we should be able to fix this. The problem is that your compiled region enables no_grad at the very beginning: so when torch.compile is invoked, we have not yet hit the no_grad region. When we actually trace the graph, though, we will find that none of the outputs of the graph require gradients.

AOTAutograd has some similar logic to recognize when it is compiling for inference vs training here

It's a bit annoying though, since inductor is choosing what fw_compiler to use before invoking AOTAutograd. So we would have to change the "fw_compiler" that we pass in from inductor, to dynamically switch between the inference or fw variant, depending on what AOTAutograd discovered.

[xuzhao9]

Thanks @bdhirsh for the response. I will keep this issue open since it is a valid issue with simple script to reproduce. On the torchbench side, we will workaround it by moving the no_grad() context before the compile region.

[masnesral]

Issue scrubbing 2025Q1: Still an issue.

[masnesral]

This no longer repros for me on a recent build. Soooo fixed? @xuzhao9 do you want to verify?

[xuzhao9]

@masnesral I can still reproduce with the original script on nightly 2.9.0.dev20250710+cu128, I updated the print statement location here:

pytorch/torch/_inductor/compile_fx.py

Line 1371 in 3061025

if config.freezing and not torch.is_grad_enabled():

I am okay to close the issue since it is a rare use case and can be workarounded by wrapping run().