Spyder crashes at launch: "python.exe has stopped working"

[dprice]

I've been trying to solve this problem for weeks, to no avail. Please note I am a technical person, but hardware, not software.

Here's the issue. I had the old Spyder 1.7.0/pyt2.7 working for years on my laptop, Win 7, 32-bit. I recently uninstalled it and reinstalled Spyder 2.3.4-pyt2.7.

When:

I launch spyder from:

1. The Spyder Windows icon
2. From the windows command prompt
3. From the Anaconda command prompt
4. From the python command line
5. From the windows command prompt with defaults (spyder --defaults)

It always results in a crash, followed by "python.exe has stopped working" (or sometimes "pythonw.exe has stopped working"). This usually happens when the splash screen says "loading file explorer"

What I have tried that does not fix the problem:

1. Uninstalling and reinstalling
2. Resetting spyder (spyder --reset)
3. deleting the .spyder2 directory
4. changing the spyder config file, to disable the explorer. This results in the crash happening when the splash screen says "loading namespace...."

The only information I receive from windows is the an applications crash, and the offending application is python27.dll.

I'm out of ideas and need help. I am willing to do the work and send whatever info required to solve this problem, but I need a guru to lead the way.

Thanks

[Carlos Córdoba]

Hi,

Please follow the advice I gave you on Github. Other than that, I'd like to ask you if you have a Windows user name that has non-ascii letters on it. That could be other thing that is causing your problem.

And yet another advice is to look for and remove our configuration directory, which is called .spyder2 (notice the dot at the beginning of it).

Cheers,
Carlos

El 19/05/15 a las 18:36, dprice escribió:

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[dprice]

Carlos,

Thanks for the reply. If you could redirect all advice regarding this issue to this group, I'd appreciate it. Google groups is more convenient for me to use than GitHub.

This morning, I reinstalled spyder (conda install spyder) after I uninstalled it last night.

"spyder" did not work.
"spyder --new-instance" did not work

Deleting the .spyder2 directory, followed by "spyder --new-instance" did not work.

In all cases, Windows reported "python.exe has stopped working".

Windows reported:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
  Application Name:    python.exe
  Application Version:    0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:    54935c78
  Fault Module Name:    python27.dll
  Fault Module Version:    2.7.9150.1013
  Fault Module Timestamp:    54935c77
  Exception Code:    c0000005
  Exception Offset:    0008fc79
  OS Version:    6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.4
  Locale ID:    1033
  Additional Information 1:    0a9e
  Additional Information 2:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:    0a9e
  Additional Information 4:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

If I'm not mistaken, the additional info lines contain call outs to my registry, though a search via REGEDIT turned up no matches..

My username is 5 letters that are all ascii.

[dprice]

After some digging, I'm fairly convinced that its not spyder or python that are causing directly causing my problems, but somehow related to the Windows explorer function.

When I run spyder, I get the crash when I see "loading file explorer....." on the splash screen.

I can start spyder light and run python interactively just fine. I can see and use the variable explorer.

BUT, when I attempt to either use the "working directory" function from the options pull down in spyder light, OR I attempt to run a python script using the "Run..." command from the spyder light options pull down, spyder light just disappears from my screen. By running spyder light from another computer, the first thing I see is a windows file explorer window when I access the two aforementioned commands, is a windows file explorer.

So, I now know:
1. When spyder tried to load the file explorer at startup, it crashes
2. When spyder light tries to open the the working directory, it activiates a Windows explorer window, and crashes.
3. When spyder light tries run a python script, it activiates a Windows explorer window, and crashes.

The votes have been counted folk....Somehow, when spyder/python tries to access this function in the OS, it crashes.

Is this a registry problem? A path problem?

D

[dprice]

This concludes my troubleshooting of this problem:

Unfortunately, nothing seemed to work.  This computer is an enterprise maintained unit, and though I have administrator privileges, I am not "the administrator". So, I had my help desk rep look at it and he ran a windows systems file check utility (sfc) and it report several corrupted Win 7 system files. The log of these error was over 2MB in size, but I did not have privileges to look at it. When the sys admin tried to look at it, he was denied as well. Odd, I know, but the conclusion is, this computer is sick and needs to be re-imaged. When the administrator is denied access, something is truly amiss.

Is this the root cause of my problem? Unknown, but if when you have corrput system files and my problem with sypder happens when a windows file explorer is opened, there is a good chance they are connected. Regardless, trouble shooting a spyder problem on a computer with corrupted system files is probably a fruitless task.

They won't re-image my machine because its too old. So, I have to pitch my thinkpad... which has been a fantastic machine.... for a Dell.

[Ben Chamberlain]

I had the same problem on Windows 7 running Anaconda with Python 2.7.

For me the solution was to update ipython

conda update conda
conda update ipython ipython-notebook ipython-qtconsole

Hope this helps

[Big Stone]

other suggestions:
- some <SPACE> in your directory path could create troubles,
- try changing one or the two parameters "distribution" and "python version":
   . Anaconda / python 3.4
   . Winpython / python 2.7
   . Winpython / python 3.4
 
Some issues on windows can be better handled:
- by Python 3 than Python 2,
- or by Winpython than Anaconda.
(sometimes also the countrary).

The issue also be the virulance of your anti-virus.

[Giorgi Maghlakelidze]

Hi!

Mine got fixed after your updates and spyder itself.

conda update spyder

[Tim]

I have the same problem and none of the below have helped.  What is the easiest way to start debugging this.

spyder 2.8.8 py34_0

Any help would be much appreciated

[JK]

I'm having similar problems.  Can't figure it out...

[Richard Schrade]

I was having the same problems and followed the advice on this thread with no success. I use anaconda to manage my python packages and realized that I had pip installed spyder instead of thru anaconda. when I pip uninstalled then conda installed spyder, the issue was resolved.