AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'loader' when starting Anaconda Powershell Prompt

Question

When I open the Anaconda 3 Powershell Prompt it is giving this on startup (see below). Some similar problems have received various answers which I find confusing to implement, could someone offer a step-by-step solution to this? (I believe it has something to do with matplotlib.) Thanks!

Error processing line 1 of C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib-3.1.1-py3.7-nspkg.pth:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site.py", line 168, in addpackage exec(line) File "", line 1, in File "", line 580, in module_from_spec AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'loader'

Remainder of file ignored

Answer 1

There are several similar bug reports on Anaconda's Github page. For example 1672. The recommendation is not to use PowerShell as it's not fully supported:

@cbcoutinho it looks like you are using powershell. Our activate scripts don't currently support that, and without them, you really shouldn't trust that you have correct environment variables set.

You should stick to using the "Anaconda Prompt" on windows. Adding powershell support is soemthing we'd like to do, but we don't have a definite timeline for it.

Answer 2

Thanks for the response, I am still getting this when I use the Anaconda prompt:

Error processing line 1 of C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib-3.1.1-py3.7-nspkg.pth: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\site.py", line 168, in addpackage exec(line) File "<string>", line 1, in <module> File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 580, in module_from_spec AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'loader' Remainder of file ignored –