Beyond the general troubleshooting steps, some frequently-reported problems require more specialized solutions.
Errors starting the kernel¶
If you receive the message An error occurred while starting the kernel
in the IPython Console, Spyder was unable to launch a new Python interpreter in the current working environment to run your code.
There are a number of problems that can cause this, but most can be fixed fairly quickly with a few easy steps.
Spyder-Kernels not installed/incompatible¶
Spyder requires a supported version of the spyder-kernels
package to be present in the working environment you want to run your console in.
It is included by default with Anaconda, but if you want to run your code in another Python environment or installation, you’ll need to make sure it’s installed and updated to the latest version.
Check the required version of spyder-kernels for your version of Spyder in the following table:
Spyder |
Spyder-Kernels |
---|---|
4.0.0-4.0.1 |
1.8.1 |
4.1.0-4.1.2 |
1.9.0 |
4.1.3 |
1.9.1 |
4.1.4 |
1.9.3 |
4.1.5-4.1.6 |
1.9.4 |
4.2.0 |
1.10.0 |
5.0.0-5.0.5 |
2.0.5 |
5.1.0-5.1.5 |
2.1.3 |
5.2.0-5.2.1 |
2.2.0 |
5.2.2 |
2.2.1 |
5.3.0-5.3.3 |
2.3.3 |
5.4.0-5.4.3 |
2.4.3 |
To do so, activate the environment, then install spyder-kernels
.
If using Anaconda, open a terminal (Anaconda Prompt on Windows) and run:
conda activate ENVIRONEMENT-NAME conda install spyder-kernels=<VERSION>
Otherwise, activate your environment by whatever means you created it, and execute:
pip install spyder-kernels==<VERSION>
For both of the previous commands, replace <VERSION>
with the corresponding version in the table.
Issue with another dependency¶
If the kernel displays a long error traceback that mentions other packages like ipython
, ipykernel
, jupyter_client
, traitlets
or pyzmq
, the problem may be an out of date or incompatible version of a dependency package.
To fix this, activate the environment and update the key dependencies.
In an Anaconda environment:
conda activate ENVIRONMENT-NAME conda update spyder-kernels ipython ipykernel jupyter_client jupyter_core pyzmq traitlets
Otherwise, activate your environment by whatever means you created it, and run:
pip install -U spyder-kernels ipython ipykernel jupyter_client jupyter_core pyzmq traitlets
AttributeError/ImportError¶
Check the last few lines of the error message, and see if its an AttributeError
or ImportError
, or refers to a file you created in your current working directory or your home folder (C:/Users/YOUR_USERNAME
on Windows, /Users/YOUR_USERNAME
on macOS, or /home/YOUR_USERNAME
on Linux).
If so, the the error is likely due to your file being named the same as a Python standard library module, such as string.py
or time.py
, which overrides the built-in module that Spyder-Kernels is trying to load.
To fix this, simply rename your file to something other than one of these names, and try restarting the kernel.
To check the names of these modules, see the list in the Python standard library documentation.
Completion/help not working¶
To provide code completions, help and real-time analysis in the Editor, Spyder uses the Python Language Server (PyLS), an implementation of the Language Server Protocol specification used by VSCode, Atom and other popular editors/IDEs.
Most help and completion issues lie outside of Spyder’s control, and are either limitations with PyLS or the code that is being introspected, but some can be worked around.
Object missing docstring¶
If nothing is displayed in the calltip, hover hint or help pane, the object you’re trying to introspect may not have a docstring.
In this case, the only solution is to add one in the source code of the original function, method or class.
Object cannot be found¶
Some objects, whether due to being written in C, Cython or another language; generated dynamically at runtime; or being a method of an object you create, cannot be easily found without executing the code.
However, once you run your code in the IPython Console, you might be able to get help and completions on the object there.
LSP has stopped working¶
Occasionally, especially after using Spyder for a while, code completion, help and analysis may stop working.
If this is the case, you can check LSP status with the LSP Python item in Spyder’s status bar at the bottom of the screen, and restart it by right-clicking it and selecting the Restart Python Language Server item.
Spyder bug/dependency issue¶
Given the variety of dependencies involved in making LSP work, an incompatible or out of date version in your environment can result in error messages, incomplete results, or help/analysis not working at all.
To address this, first try updating Anaconda and Spyder as described in Basic First Aid.
If the issue still isn’t resolved, update the various relevant dependencies with:
conda update python-language-server
Plugin Problems¶
Plugin does not work at all¶
If you have installed a Spyder plugin, but you can’t see it, go to the Panes submenu of the View menu and select the plugin’s name, which should make its pane visible.
If you don’t see the plugin there, select the Dependencies item under the Help menu and see if the plugin appears at the bottom.
If the plugin with the problem is not listed in the dependencies dialog, check that you installed it in the same environment as Spyder.
If you have, then the problem may well be caused by a dependency issue.
Test whether you can import the plug-in manually by opening a Python console in the same environment as Spyder and typing, for instance, import spyder_unittest
to test the Spyder-Unittest` plug-in; this command should run without errors.
If none of this helps you to resolve the problem, then continue to the next section.
Other issues¶
If you get an error which mentions or involves a Spyder plugin, such as spyder-unittest
, spyder-terminal
or spyder-notebook
, or if you encounter any other problem with a Spyder plugin, then the first approach should be to update Spyder and the plugin to their latest versions.
If this doesn’t fix the problem, you should check the plugin’s website or repository to see if it is compatible with your version of Spyder.
Finally, if compatibility doesn’t seem to be the problem, please check those repositories to see if an issue was already opened, and report it there if not.
On this page
Trouble with Spyder? Read this first!
If Spyder crashes or you receive an error message, please read the following
troubleshooting steps before opening a new ticket. There’s a good chance
that someone else has already experienced the same issue, so solving it
yourself will likely get Spyder working again for you as quickly as possible.
Important Note: To make sure you’re getting the most relevant help for
your problem, please make sure the issue is actually related to Spyder:
- If the problem appears to be a result of your own code,
Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/ is a better place to start; - If the bug also occurs in the standard python, IPython, or qtconsole
environments, or only with a specific package, it is unlikely to be
something in Spyder, and you should report it to those sources instead. - If the problem lies with your specific install, uninstalling and clean-
reinstalling the Anaconda distribution from
https://www.anaconda.com/download/ is strongly recommended. As the other
methods of installing Spyder have many pitfalls for the unwary, we
generally aren’t able to give individual support for install issues.
Just like the programs you code in it, Spyder is written in Python, so
you can often figure out many a problem just by reading the last line of the
traceback or error message from the error dialog or Spyder’s internal console,
the latter available from Panels
> Internal Console
under the View
menu. Oftentimes, that alone will tell you how to fix the problem on your own,
but if not, we’re here to help.
If you check out our list of issue categories and problem descriptions
and see a question, error message or traceback that looks
familiar, the relevant sub-section will likely be of the most specific help
solving your issue as quickly as possible. If those steps don’t work, or
you can’t find a similar problem, you can try some Basic First Aid (next
section) or, if Spyder won’t launch, some Emergency CPR (section after)
and see if that clears it up.
Finally, if you still can’t get it to work, and the problem is indeed
Spyder-related (see above note), you should consult the the
Calling for Help section for other resources to explore and details on how
to submit an issue to our Github tracker, so the problem can be fixed for
everyone. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and best of luck!
Basic First Aid: General troubleshooting
These suggestions, while more of a shotgun approach, tend to fix the majority
of reported issues just on their own. In the rough order you should try them:
Recommended troubleshooting steps
- Restart Spyder, and try what you were doing before again.
-
Upgrade Spyder to the latest release, and you might find your issue is
resolved (along with new features, enhancements, and other bug fixes).
Minor releases come out every two months, so unless you’ve updated
recently, there is a good chance your version isn’t the latest; you can
find out with theCheck for updates
command under theHelp
menu.
To perform the update withconda
(strongly recommended), just run
conda update anaconda
thenconda update spyder
from the
Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (on Windows/Mac/Linux). -
Update Spyder’s dependencies and environment, either by installing the
latest version of your distribution (e.g. the recommended Anaconda), or
with the relevant «update all» command in the Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/
command line (on Windows/Mac/Linux). Usingconda
, you can run
conda update --all
to get the latest stable version of everything. -
Restart your machine, in case the problem lies with a lingering process
or another such issue. - From the Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (on Windows/Mac/Linux),
run the commandspyder --reset
, which will restore Spyder’s config
files to their defaults, which solves a huge variety of Spyder issues.
Note: This will reset your preferences, as well as any custom keyboard
shortcuts or syntax highlighting schemes, so you should back up the
.spyder-py3
folder in your user home directory if you particularly
care about any of those, so you can restore them should this not solve
the problem. -
Try installing Spyder into a new
conda
environment (recommended) or
virtualenv
, and only installing its dependencies there, and seeing if
the issue reoccurs. If it does not, it is likely due to another package
installed on your system, particularly if done withpip
, which can
cause many problems and should be avoided if at all possible.
See our guide to managing packages and environments with Spyder
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/wiki/Working-with-packages-and-environments-in-Spyder
for more details on how to do so. - If none of these solve your issue, you should do a full uninstall of Spyder
by whatever means you originally installed it (for Anaconda, follow all the
steps under Option B in the Anaconda uninstall guide,
https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/uninstall/ ,
delete the Anaconda directory wherever it was originally installed,
and (on Windows) delete the%appdata%/python
directory if it exists,
and then do a clean install of the latest version of the Anaconda distribution
https://www.anaconda.com/download/, which is how we recommend you
install Spyder and keep in up to date. While you are welcome to get Spyder
working on your own by one of the many other means we offer, we are only
able to provide individual support for install-related issues for users
of the Anaconda distribution. In particular,pip
installation, while
doable, is only really for experts, as there are many pitfalls involved and
different issues specific to your setup, which is why we recommend using
conda
whenever possible.
Standard approach to isolating problems
If you get the error while running a specific line, block, or script/program,
it may not be an issue with Spyder, but rather something lower down in the
«stack» it depends on. Try running it in the following, in order, if and until
it starts working as you expect, and report the bug, if there is one,
to the last one it doesn’t work in.
- Spyder, of course! Make sure you can reproduce the error, if possible.
-
A bare
qtconsole
instance, e.g. launched from Anaconda navigator or
from the Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (Windows/Mac/Linux) with
jupyter qtconsole
.qtconsole
is the GUI console backend Spyder
depends on to run its code, so most issues involving Spyder’s Console are
actually something withqtconsole
instead, and can be reported to their
issue tracker: https://github.com/jupyter/qtconsole/issues/ -
An IPython command line shell, launched with e.g.
ipython
from the
Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (Windows/Mac/Linux). Reproducable
bugs can be reported to their Github page, though make sure to read thier
guidelines and docs first: https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues - A stock Python interpreter, either run as a script file with
python path/to/your/file.py
or launched interactively withpython
,
from your Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (Windows/Mac/Linux).
While its not impossible it is a Python bug, t much more likely to be an
issue with the code itself or a package you are using, or else a
fundamental behavior, design choice or limitation of the Python language
that likely won’t be fixed anytime soon, so your best sources are the
Python docs: https://www.python.org/doc/, and the other resources listed
above.
Remember, if the problem reoccurs in a similar or identical way with any of
these methods (other than only Spyder itself), then it is almost certainly not
an issue with Spyder, and would be best handled elsewhere. As as we aren’t able
to do much of anything about issues not related to Spyder, a forum like
Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/ or the relevant package’s docs is
a much better place to get help or report the issue in that case;
see the Emergency Numbers section near the end of the document for
other places to look for information and assistance. Best of luck!
Emergency CPR: Spyder won’t launch
Just like in the real world, while it may be scary or disconcerting to have
Spyder not come to life for you, these situations are almost always fixable
so long as you stay calm, keep a cool head, and carefully follow the steps
above and below.
Common solutions
- The basic troubleshooting steps discussed in the section above, as
they usually resolve the vast majority of Spyder install-related issues. -
Make sure Spyder isn’t already running and no Spyder related windows
(e.g. Variable Explorer dialogs) are left open, and check that the
preference setting «Use a single instance» (underPreferences
>
General
>Advanced Settings
) isn’t checked. - Try starting Spyder via a different means, such as from a shortcut,
Anaconda navigator, or the Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line
(on Windows/Mac/Linux) by simply typingspyder
then enter/return,
and see if any of those work. If so, then something’s wrong with your
install, not Spyder itself, and so we recommend following Step 7 under
Basic Troubleshooting Steps to uninstall and reinstall Anaconda. - Disable any security software you may be using, such as a firewall or
antivirus, as these products can occasionally interfere with Spyder or
its related packages. Make sure to re-enable it if it doesn’t fix the
problem, and if it does, add a rule or exception for Spyder. - Run Spyder with administrator rights just in case it is some sort of
permissions issue - If Anaconda is currently installed «for just you», try uninstalling and
reinstalling it «for all users» instead, and vice versa, as some systems
can have issues with one or the other. - Reinstall it into your local startup drive, to a directory path and user
account without spaces, special characters, or unusual permissions. - Check and repair/reset permissions, your disk, and OS if all else fails
Advanced tricks
If none of the above solves the problem, you can try starting Spyder directly
from its Python source files which may either get it running, or at least
provide very useful information to help debug the problem further.
The procedure is described on, e.g., this Github issue
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/6023#issuecomment-354389413,
which allowed the user to solve a seemingly difficult situation.
The technique essentially boils down to starting Spyder from the
Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (on Windows/Mac/Linux) by manually
running the Spyder startup routine, start.py
, with a known
good Python interpreter, and observing the results. To do so, you’ll need to
navigate to the Spyder app
directory from the command line, the location
of which varies depending on how you installed it.
With Anaconda, the distribution we recommend, you can find the location(s) of
your packages directory(s) with the command conda info
, where the directory
you want is listed under package cache
. For a systemwide Anaconda install,
it is usually Anaconda3/pkgs
at the root of your drive, while it varies
depending on your operating system for a per-user install. If both are shown,
you’ll need to remember how you first installed Spyder with Anaconda, or just
check both. Inside the Anaconda directory, you should find the directory you’re
looking for under spyder-3.#.#-py##_#/Lib/site-packages/spyder/app
, where
the #
s correspond to the most recent version present.
If using pip
, which we don’t officially support, you can typically find
the needed directory, from the root of your drive, under
/Python##/Lib/site-packages/spyder/app
.
In case you’re unfamiliar, you can change directories with the
cd
command followed by the name of the directory you’d like to navigate to.
Once inside the app
directory, run python start.py
to launch Spyder.
If it doesn’t launch, then you should see an error traceback printed; carefully
copy that for future reference and also run python mainwindow.py
,
and record your results as well.
In case the command window disappears immediately after the error on Windows,
as is sometimes the case, so you cannot see what it printed just create a
batch file in the app
directory with with the following content::
C:/Absolute/Path/To/Your/Python/Executable/python.exe start.py
pause
which should to the trick. Replace the path with the actual path to the
Python interpreter you want to use, e.g. the one with Anaconda at
C:/Anaconda#/python.exe
if installed for all users, or
C:/Users/YOURUSERNAME/AppData/Local/conda/conda/Python#/python.exe
if for
just you, replacing # with the Python major version (2 or 3) of the Anaconda
you downloaded. If you’re unsure, you can get the correct path by entering
where python
in the Anaconda Prompt, and using the first path shown there.
Then, just doulbe click the batch file to run it, and you should see the
output you need.
If reading the output, particularly the last line, doesn’t solve the problem,
then record all of it carefully, and post it as part of your bug report
as described under the Calling for Help seciton near the end of this
document.
Specific problems
Individual problem reports we’ve received frequently are listed here.
RuntimeError: Can only launch a kernel on a local interface
This error, which usually also includes::
Make sure that the '*_address' attributes are configured properly.
Currently valid addresses are: [IP Addresses sometimes listed here...]
is a known problem with the WinPython distribution, outside of Spyder’s
direct control. It sometimes can be related to firewall or antivirus software,
which should be fully disabled before retrying launching Spyder to see if the
problem persists. If so, please see this issue at WinPython for more:
https://github.com/winpython/winpython/issues/582.
Complete Health: Autocompletion/help anomalies
Spyder uses the third party python packages rope
and jedi
to suggest
completions, display function signature popups, retrieve help and docstrings,
and the like. As these tools aren’t perfect, problems can occasionally pop up.
While most such issues lie outside of Spyder’s control, either with those
packages themselves or the code that is being introspected, here are some
commonly reported issues and solutions.
Code completion doesn’t work with error message mentioning «parso»
If you get an error when you try to use code completion, or that mentions
jedi
, parso
, or lexer
in any of the messages, check the version of
parso
that you are using. Spyder’s third-party code completion library,
jedi
, has compatibility issues with parso 0.1.1
.
Please read https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/5673 and the comments
for further information. You can update jedi
to the latest version with
conda update jedi
(or with pip
, if you use that instead); you can also
downgrade to parso 0.1.0
with, e.g., conda install parso=0.1.0
.
Missing Limbs: Frequently-requested features/functionality
Here’s a few commonly asked-for enhancements, the plan for adding them to
Spyder, and if possible, how you can help or enable them yourself.
Dark Theme
If you are interested in a dark theme in Spyder, check out this issue page
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/2350, which has a guide to
installing an existing one yourself.
Miscellaneous Maladies
Issues that don’t fit under the other categories.
Plugin problems
If the error mentions or involves a Spyder plug-in, such as
spyder-autopep8
, spyder-terminal
, or spyder-notebook
, please check
those repositories to see if an issue was already opened, and report it there
if not. Unfortunately, Spyder has recently lost its funding, so those
projects are on hold for now; see the relevant wiki page
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/wiki/Anaconda-stopped-funding-Spyder
for more details, and Open Collective https://opencollective.com/spyder
to help support the project and help it continue and improve.
In the meantime, you might need to uninstall the plug-in if you can’t avoid it
or fix it on your own, at least for now.
Advanced Treatments: Debugging and patching
If you know your way around Python, you can often diagnose and even fix or
patch issues yourself. You can explore the error messages
you’re receiving and Spyder’s inner workings with the Internal Console
under
the menu item View
> Panes
> Internal Console
. If you want more
detailed debug output, open an Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line
(on Windows/Mac/Linux), set the environment variable SPYDER_DEBUG to the value
«3» (on cmd
, use set SPYDER_DEBUG=3
; with bash
, execute
export SPYDER_DEBUG="3"
, and for tcsh
, run setenv SPYDER_DEBUG 3
.
Then, launch Spyder from that same shell with spyder
, and observe the
results. Even if you don’t manage to fix the problem yourself, this output
can be immensely helpful in aiding us to quickly narrow down and solve your
issue for you.
However, if you do feel up to it and think you know where to look and what to
change, you are welcome to take a stab at patching the bug. Just clone
the relevant development branch of Spyder (e.g. 3.x
for bug fixes) from our
Github repo: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/, edit the relevant Python
code in your favorite editor or IDE (or Spyder itself!), and test your changes
by running it from the cloned repo with python bootstrap.py
from the repo’s
root directory (e.g. spyder
). Then, commit your changes to a github
branch, and submit a Pull Request to the Spyder repo for them to be included in
the next main Spyder distribution!
For a quick, step by step guide to the process, see our CONTRIBUTING
document on Github:
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md,
and for even more about developing Spyder, check out our Github wiki:
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/wiki. Thanks for your help!
Emergency Numbers: Additional helpful resources to consult
Aside from this document, there are a number of other sources of documentation
and troubleshooting information you should at least search or skim, before
submitting an issue, as they might already offer an answer or at least help
you better understand the following. Even if we aren’t able to help you,
these places might.
Spyder-related platforms
-
Spyder documentation: https://docs.spyder-ide.org/
It explains how to use Spyder’s basic features and addresses a number of
common «How can I?» questions that arise. Its still a work in progress,
so if you discover something missing from the docs, please submit an
issue or pull request to add it! -
Spyder dev documentation: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/wiki
Along with additional general information about Spyder and its features,
our wiki has information about how to develop and test Spyder, our
development roadmap and the features planned in the next release, other
common questions, the changelog, and much more. -
Spyder website: https://www.spyder-ide.org/
While it is still under very early alpha development and isn’t polished for
public consumption, it does contain basic information about Spyder and
links to many other helpful resources. -
Spyder Google Group: https://groups.google.com/group/spyderlib
Great for your more help-related questions, particularly those
you aren’t sure are a full-on Spyder issue, or you’d like to give
more general feedback or ask questions of the team. -
Spyder Gitter: https://gitter.im/spyder-ide/public
If you’ve got a quick question to ask the team and are looking for a quick
answer, this is a great place to chat directly with the Spyder developers. -
Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/spyder
Particularly if your question is more programming related, or has more to
do with something particular to your own code that you just can’t get
working, this is a great place to start searching and posting. It has an
active Spyder community as well, with new Spyder-related questions posted
every day, and the developers, especially the lead maintainer, are active
in answering them. -
Spyder OpenCollective: https://opencollective.com/spyder/
If you enjoy Spyder and want to help fund us fixing bugs and adding your
most requested new features, please support our work on OpenCollective!
Python help and problems
-
Google/your favorite search engine: One never fails to be surprised
how many problems can be solved by a simple Google search! -
Official Python Help page: https://www.python.org/about/help/
A great resource that lists a number of places you can get help, support
and learning resources for the Python language and its packages. -
Python Documentation: https://www.python.org/doc/
A number of issues can be explained due to quirks in the language
itself or misunderstandings as to how it behaves, and so those and much
more can be found here. -
r/Python: https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/ and
r/learnpython: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/
The former is aimed more at general Python usage and the latter more at
beginners, but both are popular places to ask about and discuss issues
with Python and its packages.
Data science/SciPy resources:
-
Anaconda Support: https://www.anaconda.com/support/
Offers free community help and documentation for the Anaconda applications,
installing the Anaconda distribution, and using theconda
package and
environment manager, as well as paid support options. -
SciPy.org Website: https://www.scipy.org/
The central home of the scipy stack, with information, documentation,
help, and bug tracking for many of the core packages used with Spyder,
including NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, Pandas, Sympy, and IPython. -
Project Jupyter: https://jupyter.org/
Development hub for IPython, Spyder’sqtconsole
, Jupyter notebooks
used with thespyder-notebook
plugin, and more. -
Data Science Stack Exchange: https://datascience.stackexchange.com/
For questions that relate more to data science than programming
specifically, data science stack exchange is a good place to ask and
answer them.
Calling For Help: Still have a problem?
If you can’t find your issue here, you’re fairly sure its Spyder-related,
and a full course of general troubleshooting didn’t solve it, then you’ll
want to submit it to our issue tracker so our team can take a look at it
for you. You’ll need a github account to do that, so make sure you have one
before you begin (a good idea anyway).
Important Note: Before you submit an issue, make sure you’ve searched a
description of the problem, and a relevant portion of the error traceback, on
both Google and the Spyder repository/Issue tracker (see above or below) to
make sure it hasn’t been submitted before. We currently have over 5,000
submitted issues in the past few years, along with over 1,500 stack overflow
questions tagged spyder
and thousands of Google Groups posts, among others,
so it is quite likely your issue or problem has been reported/solved before.
If that’s the case, your issue will be closed your issue as a duplicate,
so be sure to check first!
Ways to submit an issue
If you are able to launch Spyder, the best way to do so is to simply
select Submit Issue
from the Help
menu or, better yet, right from
the error dialog if present, which will automatically take you to the
correct page; prefill an error report with your environment details, key
versions and dependencies; give you a basic structure to fill in as needed;
and (if the latter) automatically insert the error/traceback for you.
If Spyder won’t launch (or otherwise isn’t available), you can also
submit a report manually at our Issues page on Github
https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues. Unlike the above,
you’ll need to manually provide the versions of everything
(Spyder, Python, OS, Qt/PyQt, Anaconda, and Spyder’s dependencies)
as listed in the error report template; see below for more on that.
Must-have and helpful items to include
Please include as much as possible of the following in your report
to maximize your chances of getting relevant help and our ability to diagnose,
reproduce and solve your issue. In particular, be sure to include the first
two items, as without these we will usually be unable to isolate the problem
in order to confirm and fix it, and the issue will be automatically closed
after one week (7 days) if we don’t hear from you.
The key items, in rough order of priority:
-
The full, complete error message or traceback copy/pasted or
automatically entered exactly as displayed by Spyder:- Auto-generated reports directly from the error dialog should include
this automatically, but double check to make sure. - You can copy and paste this from the the «Show Details» section of the
error dialog. - If not present, or a dialog is not displayed, you can also find it
printed to Spyder’s Internal Console, located under theView
menu
atPanels
>Internal Console
. - If you prefer, or if Spyder won’t start, you can start Spyder from the
Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (Windows/Mac/Linux) with
spyder
and copy the output printed there.
If you are reporting a specific behavior rather than an error, or the
message does not fully explain what occurs, please describe in detail
what actually happened, and what you expected Spyder to do. - Auto-generated reports directly from the error dialog should include
-
A detailed, step by step description of exactly what you did leading up
to the error/crash/behavior occurring, complete with (minimal) code that
triggers it, if possible/applicable. The more specific you are here, the
easier and faster the problem can be reproduced and fixed. -
Information about Spyder and its environment, as listed in the error
report template (if not already filled in automatically by Spyder, via
Help
>Report Issue
), which you can find underAbout Spyder
in
theHelp
menu, along with its key dependencies, shown in the dialog
underHelp
>Dependencies
(there’s a button to copy-paste them).
If Spyder won’t launch, you can get the Core Components information from
conda
or Anaconda Navigator, and paste output ofconda list
from
Anaconda Prompt/Terminal/command line (on Windows/Mac/Linux) for the rest. -
How you installed Spyder and any other relevant packages,
e.g. Anaconda/conda
(highly recommended), another
distribution like WinPython, through MacPorts or your distribution’s
package manner, usingpip
, manually from source, etc, and whether
Spyder has worked before since you installed it. *Note that
unfortunately, we generally cannot provide individual support for
installation issues with methods other thanconda
/Anaconda. -
What else you’ve tried to fix it, e.g. from this guide or elsewhere
on the web, whether you’ve seen it reported anywhere else, replicated it
on multiple machines, or (if appropriate) tried to reproduce it in
standalone Qtconsole, IPython, and/or the plain Python interpreter. -
Whether the problem occurred consistently before in similar situations,
only some of the time, or this is the first time you’ve observed it, and
whether it occurred the first time you tried the behavior that triggered it
in a new Spyder install. -
Anything else special or unusual about your system, environment,
packages, or specific usage that might have anything to do with the problem
Important note about pasting code into Github
If including block(s) of code in your report, be sure to precede and follow it
with a line of three backticks «` to get a code block like this::
Otherwise, your code will likely contain random formatting or missing
indentation, making it difficult or impossible for others to examine and run
to reproduce and fix your issue. Plus, it looks much nicer, too.
Next steps and thank you!
Once you submit your report, our team will try to get back to you as soon as
possible, often within 24 hours or less, to try to isolate the problem on our
end and help you fix/work around it on yours.
Thanks for using Spyder, and we appreciate your help making it even better!
I installed Python 3.4 on my Windows 7 laptop several months ago as part of Anaconda (https://www.continuum.io/downloads). My installation included the Spyder IDE, and I have successfully been using Spyder for Python programming.
However, since yesterday, I have been unable to open Spyder. I typically open Spyder via the Start Menu, but now, when I try to click on the Spyder icon in the Start Menu, I get no response. I then tried to go directly to the spyder.exe file in the Scripts folder in the directory where Anaconda is installed. When I clicked on this the first time, the following message flashed quickly and then disappeared:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3Scriptsspyder-script.py". line 2, in <module>
start_app.main()
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibstart_app.py", line 114, in main
from spyderlib import spyder
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibspyder.py", line 100 in <module>
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibqtQtSvg.py", line 10 in <module>
from PyQt4.QtSvg import * # analysis:ignore
ImportError:DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found
I double-clicked on Spyder.exe a second time, and this time, received the following message:
kfile.py", line 146 in lock
symlinke(str(os.getpid()), self.name)
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibutilsexternallockfile.py", line 87, in symlink
os.rmdir(newlinkname)
OSError: [WinError 145] The directory is not empty: 'C:\Users\Aniket\.spyder2-py3\spyder.lock.1459432906109.newlink'
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3Scriptsspyder-script.py". line 2, in <module>
start_app.main()
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibstart_app.py", line 106, in main
from spyderlib import spyder
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibspyder.py", line 100 in <module>
File "C:UsersAniketAnaconda3libsite-packagesspyderlibqtQtSvg.py", line 10 in <module>
from PyQt4.QtSvg import * # analysis:ignore
ImportError:DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found
Both of these messages flashed very quickly and then disappeared — I captured them by quickly pressing Print Screen when they appeared. It’s not evident to me what the error messages imply, nor what would have caused this. It’s possible that I closed Spyder while some function was running, or that Spyder crashed and caused some persistent error. Does anyone know how I can fix this?
I have two environments in which spyder just doesn’t want to launch. I click the icon there is a waiting cursor then nothing happens. One of the two is totally new that I just made today. After installing some packaged (pip install pytrends was the last one) it stopped opening.
Note: the general spyder at: C:ProgramDataAnaconda3Scriptsspyder.exe does launch, but not the one for the environments.
asked Jul 1, 2018 at 17:26
user1581390user1581390
1,8905 gold badges25 silver badges38 bronze badges
This solves the problem:
conda upgrade qt
answered Jul 1, 2018 at 17:51
user1581390user1581390
1,8905 gold badges25 silver badges38 bronze badges
6
Just try this :
- uninstall pyQt using
conda uninstall pyqt
- uninstall sip package
conda uninstall sip
- then install these packages in following order
conda install sip
conda install pyqt
conda upgrade spyder
this worked for me.
answered Feb 5, 2019 at 17:33
Vaibhav KVaibhav K
2,7023 gold badges21 silver badges22 bronze badges
0
For me the outdated library was spyder.kernel. The best solution is to open a new python environment (just input ‘py’ in command line to build a new environment) and run the following script and it tells you what library is missing or outdated:
from spyder.app import start
start.main()
answered May 22, 2020 at 19:45
I was not able to launch Spyder and Jupyter notebook from anaconda environment (Mac OS).
Following command worked for me:
conda uninstall tornado
conda install tornado==4.5.3
Just uninstall tornado
and reinstall it.
answered Nov 19, 2018 at 18:53
Sayali SonawaneSayali Sonawane
12.1k4 gold badges45 silver badges47 bronze badges
1
I had faced a similar issue while running spyder from the anaconda navigator or the conda terminal.
To overcome this issue you just need to follow some simple steps.
-
open the anaconda navigator. ( You can also use anaconda prompt and type «anaconda-navigator» at the console)
-
Open the application and then follow the steps as shown in the image.
here we are creating a new environment with a python of version 3.6. I think the 3.7 version is unstable and doesn’t work properly. It worked for me, hope for you too !!!
see the image here and follow the steps.
it will take some time to download resources to set up the environment for the first time.
after following the steps launch the application. Make sure to run the environment first to be able to launch the application.
answered Oct 10, 2019 at 16:26
CHIRAG SAHUCHIRAG SAHU
641 gold badge2 silver badges9 bronze badges
This problem is solved in the newest version of conda. Currently it is on the conda canary channel, you can get it by running conda update conda -c conda-canary
Reference
answered Dec 8, 2019 at 22:47
Hamdan HejaziHamdan Hejazi
1391 gold badge1 silver badge11 bronze badges
This worked for me:
pip uninstall spyder
pip install spyder
answered Jan 9 at 8:14
I had the same problem. Spyder was launching in the environment which had issues. I just removed the environment and everything fell back in to place.
Use this to remove the environment:
conda env remove -n ENV_NAME
answered Mar 14, 2022 at 6:23
TBhavnaniTBhavnani
7217 silver badges12 bronze badges
Spyder IDE not launching
In my case I’m not installed the IDE in c-drive. After uninstalling and installing the Ide in the c-drive. It is launching.
If you are facing the same problem try to install in the windows c-drive.
answered Feb 12 at 6:14
If you’ve just installed Anaconda / Spyder IDE (available here for personal use) in Windows find it’s not launching, and neither is the Anaconda launcher, and you have a previous installation of Python e.g. Python 2+<3, remove Python 2.X from your Windows PATH variables and retry opening it.
To do this, right click on ‘My Computer’,
select Properties to bring up System Properties and
click ‘Advanced System Settings’.
Agree to the UAC prompt and click ‘Environment Variables’ then look for Python references anywhere, edit and delete as required.
Retry launching Anaconda/Spyder and it will now work.
If this doesn’t work, open a command prompt (Type cmd/enter from the start menu), navigate to the Anaconda installation (in Windows 10, ‘cd c:programdataanaconda3” and try launching anaconda or spyder (.scriptsspyder.exe) and noting any error messages that appear which can then be googled for the relevant fixes.
Hope this helps!
Garreth