`site-packages` directories in `AppData\Roaming` are not excluded from the Pythonpath manager

[StormsHalted]

Problem Description

I updated my spyder python interpreter to Python 3.10.4. (The one I was using with Visual studio code earlier). Now when I start spyder, I get the error that because spyder kernel is not installed, the console cannot start.

I did execute the pip install spyder-kernels==2.5.* command but apparently the packages are being installed in the directory:

C:\Users\alikhan\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python310\site-packages

And Spyder cannot locate the packages here.

My Python Paths are as follows:

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Change the interpreter to a fresh install of Python 3.10
2. Restart spyder.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I expect the kernel to start in the same way as it is starting in the default python 3.8.

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.5.5 (standalone)
• Python version: 3.8.10 64-bit (But using custom 3.10.4)
• Qt version: 5.15.2
• PyQt5 version: 5.15.10
• Operating System: Windows-10-10.0.22631-SP0

Dependencies

Mandatory:

atomicwrites >=1.2.0 : 1.4.1 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0 : 5.2.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0 : 3.0.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0 : 2.6.0 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111 : 20230430 (OK)
intervaltree : None (OK)
IPython >=8.12.2,<8.13.0 : 8.12.3 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2,<0.20.0 : 0.19.1 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7 : 1.0.4 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0 : 4.22.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0 : 25.2.1 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0 : 7.16.4 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0 : 1.7.0 (OK)
paramiko >=2.4.0 : 3.4.0 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0,<0.9.0 : 0.8.4 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0 : 4.9.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4 : 0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3 : 5.9.8 (OK)
pygments >=2.0 : 2.18.0 (OK)
pylint >=3.1,<4 : 3.2.3 (OK)
pylint_venv >=3.0.2 : 3.0.3 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0 : 0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.11.0,<1.12.0 : 1.11.0 (OK)
pylsp_black >=2.0.0,<3.0.0 : 2.0.0 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=3.2.0,<3.3.0 : 3.2.3 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.2.2 : 0.2.3 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.3.1,<1.4.0 : 1.3.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.5.1,<5.6.0 : 5.5.2 (OK)
qtpy >=2.1.0 : 2.4.1 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7 : 1.2.0 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0 : 70.0.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6 : 7.1.2 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.5.2,<2.6.0 : 2.5.2 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0 : 4.6.2 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1 : 0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog : 4.0.1 (OK)
zmq >=24.0.0 : 26.0.3 (OK)

Optional:

cython >=0.21 : 3.0.10 (OK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0 : 3.7.5 (OK)
numpy >=1.7 : 1.24.4 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1 : 2.0.3 (OK)
scipy >=0.17.0 : 1.10.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3 : 1.12.1 (OK)

[ccordoba12]

Hey @StormsHalted, thanks for reporting. This is known issue with custom installations (i.e not Anaconda ones) and to fix it you need to install spyder-kernels as Administrator. In other words, you need to

• Uninstall spyder-kernels
• Open an Admin console in your system.
• Run pip install spyder-kernels==2.5.* again.

That should solve your problem, but let us know if it does.

[ccordoba12]

By the way, I'm going to rename your issue because I saw that the validation we have to exclude site-packages directories is not working for Python installations in AppData\Roaming.

[StormsHalted]

Hello @ccordoba12. This works and solves the issue.

[ccordoba12]

Great! Thanks for letting us know about it.

However, I'm going to reopen this issue to fix a related one we find thanks to the info you posted.

[StormsHalted]

Hi @ccordoba12 ,

How do I uninstall spyder-kernels from the latest version of Spyder?

Basically I had a python 3.12 already installed and then I downloaded a new version of Spyder because my older version could not update beyond 6.0.0.

So now if I use pip uninstall it will go by default to the python 3.12 and report that there is no Spyder kernels installed there.