_py_sys_model import error on windows 10 installation

[AstroYuvPA]

Hi all,

I've installed Basilisk on windows 10, and followed all steps.
After a successful installation I tried to run the scenarioBasicOrbit.py test scenario and received the following error:

(.venv) c:\{pathToBasilisk}\Basilisk\examples>py scenarioBasicOrbit.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\{pathToBasilisk}\Basilisk\examples\scenarioBasicOrbit.py", line 219, in <module>
    from Basilisk.simulation import spacecraft
  File "C:\{pathToBasilisk}\Basilisk\dist3\Basilisk\simulation\spacecraft.py", line 9, in <module>
    from Basilisk.utilities import pythonVariableLogger
  File "C:\{pathToBasilisk}\Basilisk\dist3\Basilisk\utilities\pythonVariableLogger.py", line 5, in <module>
    from Basilisk.architecture import sysModel
  File "C:\{pathToBasilisk}\Basilisk\dist3\Basilisk\architecture\sysModel.py", line 16, in <module>
    from . import _py_sys_model
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing _py_sys_model: The specified module could not be found.

I added all required environment variables and have all the required packages installed.
Couldn't find any help online.

I would appreciate your assistance,
Thanks,
Y.

[JoMeMi]

I have the exact same problem. "python conanfile.py" ran without issues, but i get the exact same error when running scenarioBasicOrbit.py. I am on Windows 11

[schaubh]

Not sure what is happening here. We are building the Windows version on our CI server with every push to develop, and it builds and runs fine. My first guess would be to check the required paths are set, check that the software is calling the versions of python, etc. For example, I see above the use of py scenarioBasicOrbit.py, not python scenarioBasicOrbit.py. Are you certain the this calls the same version of python?

[JoMeMi]

When building, I call "python conanfile.py", and then navigate into /examples, and then call "python scenarioBasicOrbit.py", so these are at least the same version of python. I don't know if this is a symptom of the same problem, but everytime I have tried running "python conanfile.py", pkg_resources is never recognized, so I have to install setuptools before being able to run conanfile.py. It may be because pkg_resources is deprecated for python 3.12, which I am using

[AstroYuvPA]

Hi,
Thanks for your answer.
I installed and ran the software from the same virtual environment (venv). I verified that it's the same python version (3.11) and that I have all packages in the virtual environment I ran the script from.

[schaubh]

Have you done python --version from the environment? For example, with another researcher in my lab there were odd issues as well. Turns out they once installed Anaconda, which inserted script into their terminal shell configuration file that forces python to call the anaconda python, not the python from the virtual environment. Once that line was removed from the terminal shell configuration script, everything ran fine.

I know such issues can be frustrating. I can share that we are running Windows version of BSK regularly. Triple check that everything is reaching code that you expect.

[JoMeMi]

If I follow the instructions exactly (the only difference being I already have Python installed), cloning the repo from scratch, I get the following error message when trying to run python conanfile.py:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<path_to_bsk>\conanfile.py", line 9, in <module>
    import pkg_resources
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pkg_resources'

Can this not be the root of the problem? As far as I can see, pkg_resources is deprecated. If I install setuptools, python conanfile.py runs fine, but then _py_sys_model is not found.

[schaubh]

Thanks for the feedback. Not finding pkg_resources seems to be an issue with setup tools not being installed properly in your virtual environment. See this discussion on this topic. Several possible fixes are suggested.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7446187/no-module-named-pkg-resources

Do any of them (way to upgrade to remove/install setup tools) work for you?

[AstroYuvPA]

Hi, yes, I've checked with python --version, and also verified in the log output during the basilisk installation, that it found python version 3.11 as the version it is installing with.
Since I don't really need any other python versions right now, I actually removed all other versions - to be on the safe side. But the problem persists.

[schaubh]

Is your issue also that pkg_resources is not found as discussed above? See the stack overflow discussion on possible issue with the python setup.

[AstroYuvPA]

no, I did not experience this issue as well - so I guess these are unrelated issues.
BTW - when I try to build basilisk through IDE (using --buildProject False) I see the following errors in Visual Studio (active config set to Release):

[AstroYuvPA]

Hi,
Finally I managed to install and run successfully Basilisk and the example scenario.
I used Basilisk v2.2.1 rather than the current v2.2.2b.
I also added to Environment Variables the following folders:
..\Basilisk\src
..\Basilisk\.venv\Scripts
Where .venv is where my virtual environment was created and in it I have executables of the correct Python version, conan version and swig version.

I'm not sure if all those steps were actually required, cause every time I tried another thing - but this is the setup that works for me now...

[schaubh]

Great news that it is running now. I'm not aware of any script changes between 2.2.2b and 2.2.1 that would be causing such issues. I know that having correct versions of swig, conan available inside venv was critical. The path you added are interesting. Might be coupled to other setup challenges. I've not heard of other Windows users having to add these.

Thanks for sharing what group of changes made it work at least ;-)

[schaubh]

Mm, interesting. Thanks for doing this test and letting us know. This was an external contribution as the python checking had issues before. On our CI server this is working fine on the Windows platform. We'll look at this more closely. I might ask you to pull a test branch to check a fix.

[AstroYuvPA]

of course.
My pleasure.

[schaubh]

To fully debug this, can you please share what version of cmake, python you are running? Also, what version of swig? I just saw 4.2.0 was release on 12/31/23.

[AstroYuvPA]

sure.
python v3.11.7
cmake v3.28.1
swig v4.1.1

[schaubh]

Ok, I'll update my python from 3.11.6 to 3.11.7, and cmake 3.27.6 to 3.28.1 and see if I can duplicate this issue.

The commit you are pointing to is the correct way of setting the python version in cmake. I was able to double check this online at least.