aadebuger-ComfyUI-EnglishAnnotator/INSTALL_NOTES.md

Install Notes

Real-world installation notes — useful when things don't go smoothly.

Target environment

• Ubuntu 22.04 + RTX 3090(s) + CUDA 12.6
• Python 3.13 inside ComfyUI's .venv (uv-managed)
• ComfyUI at /mnt/modelall/ComfyUI/
• HF_HOME=/mnt/modelall/hf_cache (root partition tight, must redirect)

Steps

cd /mnt/modelall/ComfyUI/custom_nodes

# Florence-2 + KJNodes — required upstream nodes
git clone https://github.com/kijai/ComfyUI-Florence2.git
git clone https://github.com/kijai/ComfyUI-KJNodes.git

# This node
git clone https://github.com/aadebuger/ComfyUI-EnglishAnnotator.git

# Install deps in ComfyUI venv
cd /mnt/modelall/ComfyUI && source .venv/bin/activate
export HF_HOME=/mnt/modelall/hf_cache    # don't forget

uv pip install -r custom_nodes/ComfyUI-Florence2/requirements.txt
uv pip install -r custom_nodes/ComfyUI-KJNodes/requirements.txt
uv pip install -r custom_nodes/ComfyUI-EnglishAnnotator/requirements.txt

Model pre-download (optional but recommended)

Avoids waiting for the first workflow to download Florence-2 weights:

export HF_HOME=/mnt/modelall/hf_cache
uv pip install huggingface_hub
python -c "
from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download
snapshot_download('microsoft/Florence-2-base')
snapshot_download('microsoft/Florence-2-large')
"

Start ComfyUI

pkill -9 -f main.py; sleep 3
cd /mnt/modelall/ComfyUI && source .venv/bin/activate
export HF_HOME=/mnt/modelall/hf_cache
nohup python main.py --listen 0.0.0.0 --port 8188 > ~/comfy_start.log 2>&1 &
sleep 30
grep -iE "IMPORT FAILED|error" ~/comfy_start.log | head -10

Verify nodes loaded

curl -s http://10.8.0.12:8188/object_info | python3 -c "
import json, sys
d = json.load(sys.stdin)
for n in ['EnglishWordAnnotator','Florence2ModelLoader','Florence2Run']:
    print(f'  {n}: {\"✓\" if n in d else \"✗\"}')
"

All three should be ✓.

Known issues / fixes

Symptom	Fix
Florence2ModelLoader complains about transformers version	uv pip install -U "transformers>=4.41" — Florence-2 needs newer, but stay below 5.0 if other nodes lock to 4.x (e.g. Qwen3TTS / Sonic at 4.57.3)
flash_attn import error	Set attention="sdpa" on Florence2Run
Labels render as empty boxes / squares	Fonts missing — sudo apt install fonts-dejavu-core
HF download fills root partition	export HF_HOME=/mnt/modelall/hf_cache before first run
BBOX / STRING type mismatch between Florence-2 versions	This node uses an AnyType matcher for bboxes / labels, so it tolerates flat lists, batch-wrapped lists, and dicts. Dump the workflow with --dump-workflow /tmp/wf.json and check history.outputs for the actual shape.
No module named pip inside ComfyUI venv	uv venvs don't ship pip — use uv pip install ..., not python -m pip
Multiple top-level packages when packaging	pyproject.toml already declares [tool.setuptools] packages = ["nodes"]