Windows Installation and Binary Compatibility Issues (Python 3.13/3.14) #482
Description
Description: Following up on the recent Python 3.14 migration (PR #14), I’ve encountered two significant blockers for Windows users: a solver failure on Python 3.14 and a binary runtime error on Python 3.13.
Problem 1: Solver Failure (Python 3.14)
Even though the build is deployed, it is currently impossible to install rsatoolbox in a Python 3.14 environment on Windows via Conda.
The Conflict: There is a dependency mismatch involving blas (mkl), numpy, and scipy.
Command: conda install python=3.14 rsatoolbox
Error Details:
[!IMPORTANT] The solver reports that scipy requires libblas 3.9 (pulling blas 2.305), but numpy requires blas 1.0.
conda install python=3.14
3 channel Terms of Service accepted
Channels:
- defaults
Platform: win-64
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed
LibMambaUnsatisfiableError: Encountered problems while solving:
- package rsatoolbox-0.3.2-py312he06e257_0 requires scipy >=1.17.0,<2.0a0, but none of the providers can be installed
Could not solve for environment specs
The following packages are incompatible
├─ python =3.14 * is requested and can be installed;
└─ rsatoolbox =* * is not installable because it requires
└─ scipy >=1.17.0,<2.0a0 *, which requires
├─ libblas >=3.9.0,<4.0a0 *, which requires
│ └─ blas ==2.305 mkl, which can be installed;
└─ numpy >=1.25.2 * but there are no viable options
├─ numpy 2.4.1 would require
│ └─ python_abi =3.12 *_cp312 but there are no viable options
│ ├─ python_abi 3.12 would require
│ │ └─ python =3.12 *_cpython, which conflicts with any installable versions previously reported;
│ └─ python_abi 3.12 would require
│ └─ python =3.12 *, which conflicts with any installable versions previously reported;
└─ numpy [1.25.2|1.26.0|...|2.4.1] would require
└─ blas ==1.0 mkl, which conflicts with any installable versions previously reported.
Problem 2: DLL Load Failure (Python 3.13)
After downgrading to Python 3.13, the package installs but fails at runtime. This appears to be a binary incompatibility with the h5py dependency.
Error: ImportError: DLL load failed while importing defs: The specified procedure could not be found.
Context: Occurs during import rsatoolbox when it attempts to load h5py via rsatoolbox.io.hdf5. Occurs specifically when running on a jupyter notebook.
ImportError Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[2], line 2
1 import numpy as np
----> 2 import rsatoolbox as rsatool
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\rsatoolbox\__init__.py:7
3 """ Top level package: Only imports and organisation
4 """
6 from . import cengine
----> 7 from . import data
8 from . import inference
9 from . import model
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\rsatoolbox\data\__init__.py:1
----> 1 from .dataset import Dataset
2 from .dataset import TemporalDataset
3 load_dataset
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\rsatoolbox\data\dataset.py:24
22 from rsatoolbox.util.descriptor_utils import parse_input_descriptor
23 from rsatoolbox.util.descriptor_utils import desc_eq
---> 24 from rsatoolbox.io.hdf5 import read_dict_hdf5
25 from rsatoolbox.io.pkl import read_dict_pkl
26 from rsatoolbox.data.base import DatasetBase
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\rsatoolbox\io\hdf5.py:12
10 except ModuleNotFoundError:
11 from importlib_metadata import version
---> 12 from h5py import File, Group, Empty
13 import numpy as np
16 def write_dict_hdf5(fhandle: Union[str, IO], dictionary: Dict) -> None:
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\h5py\__init__.py:33
30 else:
31 raise
---> 33 from . import version
35 if version.hdf5_version_tuple != version.hdf5_built_version_tuple:
36 _warn(("h5py is running against HDF5 {0} when it was built against {1}, "
37 "this may cause problems").format(
38 '{0}.{1}.{2}'.format(*version.hdf5_version_tuple),
39 '{0}.{1}.{2}'.format(*version.hdf5_built_version_tuple)
40 ))
File c:\Users\hagar\miniconda3\envs\physio\Lib\site-packages\h5py\version.py:15
10 """
11 Versioning module for h5py.
12 """
14 from collections import namedtuple
---> 15 from . import h5 as _h5
16 import sys
17 import numpy
File h5py/h5.pyx:1, in init h5py.h5()
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing defs: The specified procedure could not be found.
It might all be my own lack of experience, so if that is the case, I really apologize! I tried to see whether anyone else had encountered the same error but it didn't seem so. Thank you for any response!
Environment Info:
- OS: Windows 11 (win-64)
- Conda Version: conda 25.11.1
- Channels: defaults, conda-forge
Current Workaround: The only stable way I found to run rsatoolbox on Windows was to create a fresh environment restricted to Python 3.12.