Spyder3 Python IDE does not start: “This Windows version does not support the required Bluetooth API”

Question

Been using spyder3 IDE to play around with python. I reformatted my computer recently and then ran into this problem when starting sypder:

My usual steps after a computer format are:

1) Install Python 3 from python.org windows .exe download.

2) Run these commands in command prompt.

    pip install PyQt5
    pip install spyder

3) Using explorer, navigate to python/scripts/ and double clicked on spyder3.exe.

4) Usually spyder3 will start now, but recently I have been getting this error box: Windows Error Box

"This Windows version (6.3.9600) does not support the required Bluetooth API. Consider updating to a more recent Windows (10.0.10586 or above)."

I reformatted my computer again, reinstalled everything but the problem is persisting.

I tried to load spyder3 by downloading the spyder .zip git-hub and using the following command:

    python bootstrap.py

but this leads me to the same error message.

Both these methods worked fine before, I am unsure what caused it and how to proceed. Kindly asking for your insights :)

Answer 1

It looks like the problem has been introduced by PyQt5 5.10.

Reverting to 5.9.2 using the following commands worked for me:

pip uninstall PyQt5
pip install PyQt5==5.9.2

Not sure whether it's PyQt5's fault or Spyder misusing the API.

Answer 2

import PyQt5.Qt imports everything including bluetooth. While that import looks nice for the sake of only having one it does cost in scenarios such as this. So, just use the regular imports like import PyQt5.QtWidgets instead. I'll see if I can find any evidence of this in Spyder at this point.

https://github.com/spyder-ide/qtpy/pull/143 was released with Spyder 1.4.1.