Why can I not catch a Queue.Empty exception from a multiprocessing Queue?

The Empty exception you’re looking for isn’t available directly in the multiprocessing module, because multiprocessing borrows it from the queue module (which used to be named Queue in Python 2). To make your code work, just do an import queue at the top:

Try this:

import multiprocessing
import queue # or Queue in Python 2

f = multiprocessing.Queue()
try:
    f.get(True,0.1)
except queue.Empty: # queue here refers to the module, not a class
    print('foo')