Pycharm: "Python Interpreter exited with non-zero exit code -1" when connecting to an existing Docker Compose Service

Question

I have a multi-container application managed by a docker-compose.yml file consisting of an ollama, openwebui, and python-dev. I'm working on PyCharm 2025.1.3.1; MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1; Docker 28.1.1, and the containers are running successfully via the docker compose up -d command. My goal is to configure PyCharm to use the Python Interpreter inside my existing, running python-dev container.

The container is running persistently and I am able to interact with it via a terminal:

I am using Pycharm's Add Interpreter -> On Docker workflow:

The introspection runs successfully showing where python exists on the container with a warning, but it finds the running environment so I'm not too concerned about this step:

However, when I click the "create" button on the final step, the process fails with the error: Python interpreter process exited with a non-zero exit code -1.

Since the introspection logs show success, I'm not sure what is failing at the final stage. The error is a generic exit code -1 too.

How can I successfully configure the interpreter to connect to my running python-dev service?

Docker Config Files

Further code is available on Github

Docker Compose:

version: '3.8'

services:
  ollama:
    image: ollama/ollama
    container_name: ollama
    volumes:
      - ./ollama-data:/root/.ollama
    ports:
      - "11434:11434"
    restart: unless-stopped

  webui:
    image: ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main
    container_name: open-webui
    volumes:
      - ./webui-data:/app/backend/data
    ports:
      - "3000:8080"
    environment:
      - OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://ollama:11434
    depends_on:
      - ollama
    restart: unless-stopped

  python-dev:
    build: .
    container_name: python-dev
    volumes:
      - ./:/app
    ports:
      - "8501:8501"
    command: sleep infinity
    # command: streamlit run src/app.py --server.runOnSave=true # also doesn't work
    depends_on:
      - ollama
    restart: unless-stopped

Dockerfile:

FROM python:3.12-bullseye

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY . .
EXPOSE 8501

Tried searching, using Google/LLMs, but no success thus far.

Your other services have published ports:, so you can reach them directly from the host system (probably using localhost as a host name and the first ports: number). Can you use a non-container Python for day-to-day development, targeting these containerized services as needed for integration testing? — David Maze
– David Maze, Commented Sep 16 at 12:30
I have no idea how to do any of this. Can you help convert to pdf file and zip file ? — Calvin Outten
– Calvin Outten, Commented Sep 16 at 13:02

Pavel Karateev · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-17 12:57:36Z

3

you are facing a PyCharm bug, namely https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-81541, I believe

the fix should land in 2025.3 version, try the Early Access Preview build (EAP) from https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/nextversion/

answered Sep 17 at 12:57

Pavel Karateev

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