failed to import psycho backend

Roelof

Dear all,

Running experiments with the 'psycho' backend seems difficult on the current computer I am working on, and I was wondering if anyone had experienced something similar. The error that pops up is the following:
"failed to import psychopy because it is not (correctly) installed. For installation instructions, please visit [...] etc"

importing psychopy from the debugger works, but importing individual modules leads to strange errors that look red herring-ish (see end of this post).
The environment variables are the same as for a system where the backend is working correctly

C:\Python27;C:\Python27\DLLs;C:\Python27\Scripts;
C:\Python27\gnuplot\binary;C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\vtk;
C:\Program Files (x86)\PsychoPy2;
C:\Program Files (x86)\PsychoPy2\DLLs;
C:\Program Files (x86)\pythonxy\SciTE-3.3.2-3;
C:\Program Files (x86)\pythonxy\console;
C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PyQt4;

the OS is windows 7, and the errors come from stand-alone opensesame version 3.1.9 and are the same in version 3.0.5, the backend works fine in opensesame 2.8 and 2.9.
any suggestions are welcome,

Roelof

Python 2.7.12

* Type "help()", "copyright()", "credits()" or "license()" for more information.
* Use the "print([msg])" function in inline_script items to print to this debug window.
* Inspect inline_script variables when an experiment is finished.

import psychopy

from psychopy import visual

ImportErrorTraceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-f798aaf28897> in <module>()
----> 1 from psychopy import visual

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\__init__.py in <module>()
     13 
     14 # window, should always be loaded first
---> 15 from psychopy.visual.window import Window, getMsPerFrame, openWindows
     16 
     17 # non-private helpers

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\window.py in <module>()
     55 
     56 import psychopy  # so we can get the __path__
---> 57 from psychopy import core, platform_specific, logging, prefs, monitors, event
     58 import psychopy.event
     59 

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\psychopy\monitors\__init__.py in <module>()
      4 
      5 import os, sys
----> 6 import calibTools
      7 from calibTools import *
      8 

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\psychopy\monitors\calibTools.py in <module>()
     18 
     19 import numpy
---> 20 import scipy.optimize as optim
     21 from scipy import interpolate
     22 

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\__init__.py in <module>()
    231 
    232 from .optimize import *
--> 233 from ._minimize import *
    234 from ._root import *
    235 from .minpack import *

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\_minimize.py in <module>()
     28 
     29 # constrained minimization
---> 30 from .lbfgsb import _minimize_lbfgsb
     31 from .tnc import _minimize_tnc
     32 from .cobyla import _minimize_cobyla

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\lbfgsb.py in <module>()
     42                        _check_unknown_options, wrap_function,
     43                        _approx_fprime_helper)
---> 44 from scipy.sparse.linalg import LinearOperator
     45 
     46 __all__ = ['fmin_l_bfgs_b', 'LbfgsInvHessProduct']

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\sparse\linalg\__init__.py in <module>()
    114 from .interface import *
    115 from .eigen import *
--> 116 from .matfuncs import *
    117 from ._onenormest import *
    118 from ._norm import *

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\sparse\linalg\matfuncs.py in <module>()
     17 import numpy as np
     18 
---> 19 import scipy.misc
     20 from scipy.linalg.basic import solve, solve_triangular
     21 

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\misc\__init__.py in <module>()
     49 from .common import *
     50 from numpy import who, source, info as _info
---> 51 from scipy.special import comb, factorial, factorial2, factorialk
     52 
     53 import sys

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\special\__init__.py in <module>()
    625 from __future__ import division, print_function, absolute_import
    626 
--> 627 from ._ufuncs import *
    628 
    629 from .basic import *

ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.`
![](https://forum.cogsci.nl/uploads/editor/zy/3a1ift2c5mhq.png "")

sebastiaan

Hi Roelof,

The error seems to come from scipy, more specifically the scipy.optimize module. If you import this module on its own, do you get the same error?

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Roelof

Hi Sebastiaan,

Thank you for the response and suggestion, importing the module on its own (import scipy) gives no errors, but importing the specific module gives:

from scipy import optimize

ImportErrorTraceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-b32e70e68d77> in <module>()
----> 1 from scipy import optimize

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\__init__.py in <module>()
    231 
    232 from .optimize import *
--> 233 from ._minimize import *
    234 from ._root import *
    235 from .minpack import *

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\_minimize.py in <module>()
     28 
     29 # constrained minimization
---> 30 from .lbfgsb import _minimize_lbfgsb
     31 from .tnc import _minimize_tnc
     32 from .cobyla import _minimize_cobyla

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\optimize\lbfgsb.py in <module>()
     38 import numpy as np
     39 from numpy import array, asarray, float64, int32, zeros
---> 40 from . import _lbfgsb
     41 from .optimize import (approx_fprime, MemoizeJac, OptimizeResult,
     42                        _check_unknown_options, wrap_function,

ImportError: cannot import name _lbfgs

This last line (ImportError: cannot import name _lbfgs) also occurs for importing packages from psychopy such as visual or tools,

Roelof

Perhaps also of importance: the error occurs only on a specific desktop, the same standalone opensesame version (ran from usb) works fine on my own laptop

sebastiaan

Hi Roelof,

That's a strange error. Two things come to mind:

• Something corrupted your Python environment. Downloading OpenSesame again and seeing if the problem persists would be a good check.
• The lbfgsb uses some functionality that is not supported by your system. If so, then upgrading or downgrading scipy might resolve the issue. But it's groping in the dark, because it's unclear where the issue originates from.

Cheers!
Sebastiaan

Roelof

Hi Sebastian,
Thanks for the advice, I tried upgrading scipy to version 0.12 or version .19, but to no avail.
I did discover that python was executing in 64 bit, which I changed to 32, but it did not solved the problem, although the systems on which the same standalone version was working was 32 bit as well.

Furthermore when scipy is not installed in my standard python folder ('C:\Python27') I get the following error:
DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.

If I install scipy, I get the following:
"cache deserialization failed"

and then in opensesame we are back to the lgbsf error:
cannot import name _lbfgsb

This seems at least as if opensesame is looking for scipy package in the C:\Python27 folder, which might not be desireable, not sure how to change the priority for where to look for packages though

When I completely remove my local python installation, opensesame also does not run psychopy and says:
DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

Not sure if this is any help, I'll keep looking what the issue might be,

Roelof

Python 2.7.12

* Type "help()", "copyright()", "credits()" or "license()" for more information.
* Use the "print([msg])" function in inline_script items to print to this debug window.
* Inspect inline_script variables when an experiment is finished.

import psychopy

from scipy import optimize

ImportErrorTraceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-b32e70e68d77> in <module>()
----> 1 from scipy import optimize

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\__init__.py in <module>()
    117     del _NumpyVersion
    118 
--> 119     from scipy._lib._ccallback import LowLevelCallable
    120 
    121     from scipy._lib._testutils import PytestTester

C:\Program Files (x86)\_PortableOpenSesameS\opensesame_3.1.9-py2.7-win32-1\lib\site-packages\scipy\_lib\_ccallback.py in <module>()
----> 1 from . import _ccallback_c
      2 
      3 import ctypes
      4 
      5 PyCFuncPtr = ctypes.CFUNCTYPE(ctypes.c_void_p).__bases__[0]

ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

sebastiaan

Hi Roelof,

This is going to be tricky to resolve, but it will be helpful to know the following: Python environments are completely separate, and don't share libraries, except in two cases (that I can think of):

• When you have the PYTHON_PATH set as an environment variable. In that case, the Python path will be used by all Python environments.
• When Python libraries use a dll that is not in the Python environment per se, but somewhere else in the system.

I don't know if either of these is going on in your case. The fact that removing your local installation has any effect on OpenSesame at all (which is odd) suggests that it may be.

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Roelof

update:
when upgrading scipy to latest version (1.1.0) the experiment runs psycho backend fine, in both opensesame versions 3.1.9 and 3.2.5, the exact change that lead to the solution is still obscure, but it is working atm