loading package crashes whole Julia instance about queryverse.jl

[sschelm]

I'm having huge troubles right now to get PyCall working with my system installs.
It therefore looks to me more like a setup and/or PyCall issue than a Queryverse or ExcelReader one.

I'm sticking to the Conda version for now.

[sschelm]

The issue seems to come from the ExcelReaders package

julia> using ExcelReaders
INFO: Precompiling module ExcelReaders.
ImportError: No module named site
ERROR: Failed to precompile ExcelReaders to /Users/schelm/.julia/lib/v0.6/ExcelReaders.ji.
Stacktrace:
 [1] compilecache(::String) at ./loading.jl:710
 [2] _require(::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:497
 [3] require(::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:405

[davidanthoff]

Hm... Does the PyCall package generally work on your system?

[sschelm]

Yes, IJulia for example works fine.
Strange, now I'm just getting the ExcelReaders precompile LoadError but the shell doesn't crash anymore.

But I found the cause of the issue:
I changed the python exe to a system wide one.
I just switched back to the Conda default, rebuilt PyCall and voila: using Queryverse worked fine, no errors.

That other python version was 3.6.6, Condas default seems to be 2.7.
Just to be sure, I tested it with a system wide python version of 2.7.15
That didn't work either:

julia> using Queryverse
INFO: Precompiling module ExcelReaders.
ERROR: LoadError: InitError: 
signal (11): Segmentation fault: 11
while loading no file, in expression starting on line 0
PyObject_Call at /usr/lib/libpython2.7.dylib (unknown line)
macro expansion at /Users/schelm/.julia/v0.6/PyCall/src/exception.jl:81 [inlined]
__pycall! at /Users/schelm/.julia/v0.6/PyCall/src/pyfncall.jl:44
_pycall! at /Users/schelm/.julia/v0.6/PyCall/src/pyfncall.jl:29
unknown function (ip: 0x120953068)
...

It seems to me that there's something different between the Conda python version and other ones.
Any interest in the full error message for the system wide 2.7.15 test?

[davidanthoff]

I think the issue is that you need the Python package xlrd installed. When you use a conda managed Python, that happens automatically, but with the system wide it probably doesn't. Could you try to install xlrd (via pip, I think) for the system wide Python and check whether that works?

[sschelm]

The xlrd package was not installed on the system wide versions, as you guessed.
I installed it for both python 2.7.15 and 3.6.6 and verified the installations.

Unfortunately it didn't really help:
For the 2.7.15 version, I'm getting an init error due to a segfault.
Whereas for the 3.6.6, I'm getting the original error:

ImportError: No module named site
ERROR: LoadError: LoadError: Failed to precompile ExcelReaders to /Users/schelm/.julia/lib/v0.6/ExcelReaders.ji.

Both during precompile of the ExcelReaders.ji package.

Is there another py module that's needed for ExcelReaders?

[sschelm]

Interesting.
When I check the packages in the Condo install with ./python pip freeze at ~/.julia/v0.6/Conda/deps/usr/bin, xlrd does not show up.

I'll have a look at the package diffs.