MNE 18.0 on MacOS M1 won't launch Spyder

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1

Hi,

I have been trying to get the current version of MNE running on MacOS M1. It just won’t run Spyder. I already tried installing the Spyder-kernels and getting Spyder from spyder-ide.org (and using the MNE Python interpreter). It will then launch the IDE, but complain about missing dependencies (QT…), so it still doesn’t work. When I add these dependencies, the whole thing breaks and python doesn’t start anymore.
Will there be a version of MNE that will work again or is MacOS now just unsupported?

thanks.

2

Hello @DukeNukem, could you please share

  • how you installed MNE
  • the exact error message(s) you get

We’re committed to fully supporting macOS. In fact, many MNE developers are using macOS as their primary platform.

Thanks!

3

Hi,

I downloaded the MNE installer version 1.8.0 for MacOS Apple Silicon from MNE-Python installers — MNE 1.8.0 documentation
I installed it normally like I did with previous versions. (I am currently running 1.6.1). After this when I click on Spyder it just doesn’t start. I see the icon moving like twice and then nothing. No error message or anything. I tracked it down to the point that I know that the MNE installer does not include the Spyder scripts and support anymore.
There is no /Applications/MNE-Python/1.8.0_0/.mne-python/bin/spyder
The Spyder “app” essentially tries to execute this spyder script and since it’s not there, it just fails without an error message.
I can open the MNE “Prompt” app and it seems to work in general. I tried a “conda install spyder -kernels” and it installs a few things, but Spyder still doesn’t work. I have used the MNE installer for a few previous versions already and it worked just fine so far.

I eventually solved it just now. With a clean install, you need to open the “Prompt”, then conda install spyder-kernels and conda install spyder. I also copied the “.mne-python/bin/spyder” script from 1.6.1 to the 1.8.0 installation and changed the path in the script to 1.8.0.

It just feels a bit unnecessary to include a Spyder App, which doesn’t work until you actually install spyder via conda.

thanks.

4

This actually shouldn’t be necessary. Are you sure you cannot start Spyder by simply opening the Prompt and typing spyder?

cc @larsoner

5

yes, absolutely. I tried that. The “spyder” script was missing in /Applications/MNE-Python/1.8.0_0/.mne-python/bin.
I asked some people here and they told me that they don’t use the MNE installer on MacOS or don’t use Spyder at all. I ended up sticking to the MNE installer, because I experienced a lot of package incompatibilities when going any other route. Most people seem to use Linux.

6

Thanks for letting us know, @DukeNukem! We’ll look into this.

1 Like
7

thanks. I really appreciate that you reply to these rather stupid tech support questions.

8

Argh yes we removed Spyder from the installation but forgot to remove the launcher :frowning:

I expect that it will be fixed with the 1.9.0 installers, which should land in a couple of weeks

9

… in the meantime, you can create a separate conda environment for Spyder and launch it with that env activated

10

but why? I also tried downloading spyder from their website and setting it up separately, but let it use the MNE python interpreter just as was described. I tried to install the necessary dependency libraries to run MNE und MNE graphics. This would break the Spyder environment completely.
Do you all use a different IDE? If Spyder is now unsupported, I would be open to switching to something else. As I described, I just experienced a lot of problems with unavailable and incompatible dependencies when combining MNE with other python environments.

11

VSCode is very common nowadays, I’ve used it for a few years now as have a lot of other devs I know.

For MNE incompatibilities keep in mind conda install mne will install and require a ton of stuff, conda install mne-base will require much less (but you might have to manually install some other dependencies you need). So if you need better compat with another env then conda install mne-base is generally much easier.

12

Thanks @larsoner, I had forgotten about that!

I think as soon as Spyder starts supporting Qt6, we can include it again. But I might be mistaken!

13

We’re tracking this issue here:

14

I know that my personal opinion isn’t all that important, but I certainly prefer Spyder over a Microsoft product anytime, so I would appreciate if MNE could retain Spyder-support.

15

@larsoner Do you think we could at least ship the Spyder kernel package so that a standalone Spyder could make use of the deployed MNE environment?

16

We already do (and have for a while I think), should be in the 1.8.0 installer

1 Like