AttributeError when exporting conda environment

Question

When I try to export one of my environments using conda env export -n torch > torch.yml I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/bin/conda-env", line 6, in <module>
    from conda_env.cli.main import main
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/conda_env/cli/main.py", line 44, in <module>
    from . import main_create
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/conda_env/cli/main_create.py", line 20, in <module>
    from .. import specs
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/conda_env/specs/__init__.py", line 15, in <module>
    from .notebook import NotebookSpec
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/conda_env/specs/notebook.py", line 5, in <module>
    import nbformat
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbformat/__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
    from . import v1, v2, v3, v4
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbformat/v4/__init__.py", line 39, in <module>
    from .convert import downgrade, upgrade
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbformat/v4/convert.py", line 13, in <module>
    from .. import validator
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbformat/validator.py", line 13, in <module>
    from .json_compat import ValidationError, _validator_for_name, get_current_validator
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbformat/json_compat.py", line 11, in <module>
    import jsonschema
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jsonschema/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
    from jsonschema._format import (
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jsonschema/_format.py", line 10, in <module>
    from jsonschema.exceptions import FormatError
  File "/home/onatgirit/anaconda3/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jsonschema/exceptions.py", line 158, in <module>
    @attr.s(hash=True)
AttributeError: module 'attr' has no attribute 's'

Output for conda info :

     active environment : None
            shell level : 0
       user config file : /home/onatgirit/.condarc
 populated config files : /home/onatgirit/.condarc
          conda version : 4.13.0
    conda-build version : 3.20.5
         python version : 3.8.13.final.0
       virtual packages : __cuda=11.6=0
                          __linux=5.13.0=0
                          __glibc=2.31=0
                          __unix=0=0
                          __archspec=1=x86_64
       base environment : /home/onatgirit/anaconda3  (writable)
      conda av data dir : /home/onatgirit/anaconda3/etc/conda
  conda av metadata url : None
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
          package cache : /home/onatgirit/anaconda3/pkgs
                          /home/onatgirit/.conda/pkgs
       envs directories : /home/onatgirit/anaconda3/envs
                          /home/onatgirit/.conda/envs
               platform : linux-64
             user-agent : conda/4.13.0 requests/2.27.1 CPython/3.8.13 Linux/5.13.0-44-generic ubuntu/20.04.4 glibc/2.31
                UID:GID : 1000:1000
             netrc file : None
           offline mode : False

Output for conda list -n base '(nbformat|jsonschema|attr)' :

    # packages in environment at /home/onatgirit/anaconda3:
    #
    # Name                    Version                   Build  Channel
    attrs                     21.4.0             pyhd3eb1b0_0  
    jsonschema                4.4.0            py38h06a4308_0  
    nbformat                  5.3.0            py38h06a4308_0  
    python-fastjsonschema     2.15.1             pyhd3eb1b0_0

Output for conda run -n base python -c 'import attr; print(attr.__spec__)' conda run -n base python -c 'import attr; print(attr.__spec__)' :

ModuleSpec(name='attr', loader=<_frozen_importlib_external.SourceFileLoader object at 0x7fd32b603160>, origin='/home/onatgirit/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/attr.py')

The conda version that I'm currently using is 4.13.0 and I'm on Ubuntu 20.04.4 with kernel version 5.13.0-44-generic.

I tried to export other environments as well and had the same problem with them too.

I have also tried to uninstall "attr" and install "attrs" via pip but it didn't have any affect on the situation.

Answer 1

The problem here is side-loading from user site, which can be seen by how Python has resolved the attr module:

'/home/onatgirit/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/attr.py'

Not sure what is in that file, but it is masking the attr module that is expected to be provided by attrs packages.

Several options to resolve this can be found in this answer . For this particular case, if you are not deliberately using the user site, I would recommend removing all ~/.local/lib/python* directories (ie, everything installed with pip install --user ). Otherwise, the simplest solution is probably to do:

conda install -n base conda-forge::conda-ecosystem-user-package-isolation