anaconda-auth and conda-anaconda-tos errors powershell terminal positron

[lyndsayrandall]

Hi
Does any one know why this error occures in positron powershell terminal

Error while loading conda entry point: anaconda-auth (source code string cannot contain null bytes)
Error while loading conda entry point: conda-anaconda-tos (source code string cannot contain null bytes)
Error while loading conda entry point: anaconda-auth (source code string cannot contain null bytes)
Error while loading conda entry point: conda-anaconda-tos (source code string cannot contain null bytes)

Have tried uninstalling and installing as suggested no fix,
Did the re-initialise positron state as suggested; fix lasted that openinng only of positron.
Errors do not occur in windows cmd line terminal.
Errors do not occur outside positron on a powershell terminal.
Errors do not occur in a Visual Study Code powershell terminal.
while conda still works it is very irritating that thes efirst lines are generated all thge time.
Regards

[nstrayer]

Hi @lyndsayrandall,

Thanks for reporting this! This probably has to do something with how Positron tries to be smart about Conda.

Positron does two things when dealing with conda environments:

1. Injects a script when launching PowerShell terminals. This script loads and modifies some environment variables for VS Code integration features.
2. Positon auto-activates Python environments when terminals open (controlled by python.terminal.activateEnvironment, which defaults to true.) For conda environments, it sends conda activate <env>.

The errors you're seeing ("source code string cannot contain null bytes") are appearing immediately when you open Positron, which suggests something is probably getting twisted timing wise.

Could you try the following steps to help us figure out the issue?

1. Try disabling Python environment auto-activation:
   Add this to your Positron settings.json:

   "python.terminal.activateEnvironment": false

   This is a Python extension setting (not shell integration), and prevents Positron from automatically running conda activation commands.

2. Compare behavior:

   • In VS Code: Do you have the Python extension installed? Do you have an interpreter selected?
   • The difference might be that VS Code doesn't have a Python environment configured, so it doesn't trigger the auto-activation

This is definitely worth filing as an issue since it appears to be a Positron-specific interaction.

When making an issue could you include the following? (If you want I can create the issue for you but will still need the information to help us figure out what's going wrong.)

• Your Positron version (Help > About)
• PowerShell version ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion)
• Conda version
• Whether you have a Python interpreter selected in Positron
• Whether disabling python.terminal.activateEnvironment resolves it
• Whether you have the Python extension installed in your VS Code setup

[lyndsayrandall]

Hi
The following is info as requested .
I do not know procedure for creating ticket , so would appreciate if you did so.
Positron Info.txt

Regards
Mark

[juliasilge]

Can you open a bug report here? If you can fill out all the info we prompt for in that template, it will be really helpful for us to get to the bottom of what you are experiencing.