Spyder: Spyder 4 hangs indefinitely during startup and does not open (Win10 w. Conda)

[Nate28]

Problem Description

When starting Spyder, the program hangs indefinitely upon trying to open the GUI.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Create a fresh Conda environment and activate

conda create -n spyderTest python=3 spyder
conda activate spyderTest

1. Launch Spyder

1. The splash screen appears and goes through the motions of starting up Spyder, but the GUI window that appears does not respond or show anything other than a white window.

2. Reset Spyder preferences

spyder --reset

1. Try to start Spyder again

1. Now the splash screen itself hangs on "Setting up main window"
2. Close non-responsive Anaconda prompt window and retry

conda activate spyderTest
spyder

Same result: a hanging splash screen that gets stuck on "Setting up main window"

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I expect Spyder to open and connect to an IPython kernel. Instead, the main window fails to initialise properly.

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

The only text that appears in the command prompt upon trying to start Spyder is:

Attribute Qt::AA_UseSoftwareOpenGL must be set before QCoreApplication is created.

Versions

OS

Windows 10 Home
Version 10.0.17763 Build 17763

spyderTest environment

Name Version Build Channel
alabaster 0.7.12 py_0 conda-forge
argh 0.26.2 py38_1001 conda-forge
astroid 2.3.3 py38_1 conda-forge
atomicwrites 1.3.0 py_0 conda-forge
attrs 19.3.0 py_0 conda-forge
autopep8 1.5 py_0 conda-forge
babel 2.8.0 py_0 conda-forge
backcall 0.1.0 py_0 conda-forge
bcrypt 3.1.7 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
bleach 3.1.0 py_0 conda-forge
ca-certificates 2019.11.28 hecc5488_0 conda-forge
certifi 2019.11.28 py38_0 conda-forge
cffi 1.13.2 py38hb32ad35_0 conda-forge
chardet 3.0.4 py38_1003 conda-forge
cloudpickle 1.2.2 py_1 conda-forge
colorama 0.4.3 py_0 conda-forge
cryptography 2.8 py38hb32ad35_1 conda-forge
decorator 4.4.1 py_0 conda-forge
defusedxml 0.6.0 py_0 conda-forge
diff-match-patch 20181111 py_0 conda-forge
docutils 0.16 py38_0 conda-forge
entrypoints 0.3 py38_1000 conda-forge
flake8 3.7.9 py38_0 conda-forge
future 0.18.2 py38_0 conda-forge
icu 64.2 he025d50_1 conda-forge
idna 2.8 py38_1000 conda-forge
imagesize 1.2.0 py_0 conda-forge
importlib_metadata 1.5.0 py38_0 conda-forge
inflect 4.0.0 py38_1 conda-forge
intervaltree 3.0.2 py_0 conda-forge
ipykernel 5.1.4 py38h5ca1d4c_0 conda-forge
ipython 7.11.1 py38h5ca1d4c_0 conda-forge
ipython_genutils 0.2.0 py_1 conda-forge
isort 4.3.21 py38_0 conda-forge
jaraco.itertools 5.0.0 py_0 conda-forge
jedi 0.14.1 py38_0
jinja2 2.11.0 py_0 conda-forge
jpeg 9c hfa6e2cd_1001 conda-forge
jsonschema 3.2.0 py38_0 conda-forge
jupyter_client 5.3.4 py38_1 conda-forge
jupyter_core 4.6.1 py38_0 conda-forge
keyring 21.1.0 py38_0 conda-forge
lazy-object-proxy 1.4.3 py38hfa6e2cd_1 conda-forge
libclang 9.0.1 default_hf44288c_0 conda-forge
libpng 1.6.37 h7602738_0 conda-forge
libsodium 1.0.17 h2fa13f4_0 conda-forge
libspatialindex 1.9.3 he025d50_1 conda-forge
markupsafe 1.1.1 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
mccabe 0.6.1 py_1 conda-forge
mistune 0.8.4 py38hfa6e2cd_1000 conda-forge
more-itertools 8.2.0 py_0 conda-forge
nbconvert 5.6.1 py38_0 conda-forge
nbformat 5.0.4 py_0 conda-forge
numpydoc 0.9.2 py_0 conda-forge
openssl 1.1.1d hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
packaging 20.1 py_0 conda-forge
pandoc 2.9.1.1 0 conda-forge
pandocfilters 1.4.2 py_1 conda-forge
paramiko 2.7.1 py38_0 conda-forge
parso 0.6.0 py_0 conda-forge
pathtools 0.1.2 py_1 conda-forge
pexpect 4.8.0 py38_0 conda-forge
pickleshare 0.7.5 py38_1000 conda-forge
pip 20.0.2 py38_0 conda-forge
pluggy 0.13.1 py38_0 conda-forge
prompt_toolkit 3.0.3 py_0 conda-forge
psutil 5.6.7 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
pycodestyle 2.5.0 py_0 conda-forge
pycparser 2.19 py38_1 conda-forge
pydocstyle 5.0.2 py_0 conda-forge
pyflakes 2.1.1 py_0 conda-forge
pygments 2.5.2 py_0 conda-forge
pylint 2.4.4 py38_0 conda-forge
pynacl 1.3.0 py38h2fa13f4_1001 conda-forge
pyopenssl 19.1.0 py38_0 conda-forge
pyparsing 2.4.6 py_0 conda-forge
pyqt 5.12.3 py38h6538335_1 conda-forge
pyqt5-sip 4.19.18 pypi_0 pypi
pyqtwebengine 5.12.1 pypi_0 pypi
pyrsistent 0.15.7 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
pysocks 1.7.1 py38_0 conda-forge
python 3.8.1 he1f5543_2 conda-forge
python-dateutil 2.8.1 py_0 conda-forge
python-jsonrpc-server 0.3.4 py_0 conda-forge
python-language-server 0.31.7 py38_0 conda-forge
pytz 2019.3 py_0 conda-forge
pywin32 225 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
pywin32-ctypes 0.2.0 py38_1000 conda-forge
pyyaml 5.3 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
pyzmq 18.1.1 py38h16f9016_0 conda-forge
qdarkstyle 2.8 py_0 conda-forge
qt 5.12.5 h7ef1ec2_0 conda-forge
qtawesome 0.6.1 py_0 conda-forge
qtconsole 4.6.0 py_0 conda-forge
qtpy 1.9.0 py_0 conda-forge
requests 2.22.0 py38_1 conda-forge
rope 0.16.0 py_0 conda-forge
rtree 0.9.3 py38hbf79ddb_0 conda-forge
setuptools 45.1.0 py38_0 conda-forge
six 1.14.0 py38_0 conda-forge
snowballstemmer 2.0.0 py_0 conda-forge
sortedcontainers 2.1.0 py_0 conda-forge
sphinx 2.3.1 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-applehelp 1.0.1 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-devhelp 1.0.1 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-htmlhelp 1.0.2 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-jsmath 1.0.1 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-qthelp 1.0.2 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-serializinghtml 1.1.3 py_0 conda-forge
spyder 4.0.1 py38_0 conda-forge
spyder-kernels 1.8.1 py38_0 conda-forge
sqlite 3.30.1 hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
testpath 0.4.4 py_0 conda-forge
tornado 6.0.3 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
traitlets 4.3.3 py38_0 conda-forge
ujson 1.35 py38hfa6e2cd_1001 conda-forge
urllib3 1.25.7 py38_0 conda-forge
vc 14.1 h0510ff6_4
vs2015_runtime 14.16.27012 hf0eaf9b_1
watchdog 0.10.0 py38_1 conda-forge
wcwidth 0.1.8 py_0 conda-forge
webencodings 0.5.1 py_1 conda-forge
wheel 0.34.1 py38_0 conda-forge
win_inet_pton 1.1.0 py38_0 conda-forge
wincertstore 0.2 py38_1003 conda-forge
wrapt 1.11.2 py38hfa6e2cd_0 conda-forge
yaml 0.2.2 hfa6e2cd_1 conda-forge
yapf 0.28.0 py_0 conda-forge
zeromq 4.3.2 h6538335_2 conda-forge
zipp 2.1.0 py_0 conda-forge
zlib 1.2.11 h2fa13f4_1006 conda-forge

Base environment

Name Version Build Channel
_ipyw_jlab_nb_ext_conf 0.1.0 py27_0
alabaster 0.7.12 py27_0
anaconda 2019.07 py27_0
anaconda-client 1.7.2 py27_0
anaconda-navigator 1.9.7 py27_0
anaconda-project 0.8.3 py_0
asn1crypto 0.24.0 py27_0
astroid 1.6.5 py27_0
astropy 2.0.9 py27hc997a72_0
atomicwrites 1.3.0 py27_1
attrs 19.1.0 py27_1
babel 2.7.0 py_0
backports 1.0 py_2
backports.functools_lru_cache 1.5 py_2
backports.os 0.1.1 py27_0
backports.shutil_get_terminal_size 1.0.0 py27_2
backports.shutil_which 3.5.2 py27_0
backports.tempfile 1.0 py_1
backports.weakref 1.0.post1 py_1
backports_abc 0.5 py27h0ec6b72_0
beautifulsoup4 4.7.1 py27_1
bitarray 0.9.2 py27h0c8e037_0
bkcharts 0.2 py27h92b6de3_0
blas 1.0 mkl
bleach 3.1.0 py27_0
blosc 1.16.3 hc65f11a_0
bokeh 1.2.0 py27_0
boto 2.49.0 py27_0
bottleneck 1.2.1 py27hc997a72_1
bzip2 1.0.8 h0c8e037_0
ca-certificates 2019.5.15 0
cdecimal 2.3 py27h0c8e037_3
certifi 2019.6.16 py27_0
cffi 1.12.3 py27hcfb25f9_0
chardet 3.0.4 py27_1
click 7.0 py27_0
cloudpickle 1.2.1 py_0
clyent 1.2.2 py27_1
colorama 0.4.1 py27_0
comtypes 1.1.7 py27_0
conda 4.8.1 py27_0
conda-build 3.18.9 py27_3
conda-env 2.6.0 1
conda-package-handling 1.6.0 py27h3cc03e0_0
conda-verify 3.4.2 py_1
configparser 3.7.4 py27_0
console_shortcut 0.1.1 3
contextlib2 0.5.5 py27h42efda5_0
cryptography 2.4.2 py27hc64555f_0
curl 7.64.0 h7a46e7a_2
cycler 0.10.0 py27h59acbbf_0
cython 0.29.12 py27hc56fc5f_0
cytoolz 0.10.0 py27h0c8e037_0
dask 1.2.2 py_0
dask-core 1.2.2 py_0
decorator 4.4.0 py27_1
defusedxml 0.6.0 py_0
distributed 1.28.1 py27_0
docutils 0.14 py27h8652d09_0
entrypoints 0.3 py27_0
enum34 1.1.6 py27_1
et_xmlfile 1.0.1 py27h1de5d23_0
fastcache 1.1.0 py27h0c8e037_0
filelock 3.0.12 py_0
flask 1.1.1 py_0
freetype 2.9.1 h4d385ea_1
funcsigs 1.0.2 py27h8885ae1_0
functools32 3.2.3.2 py27_1
future 0.17.1 py27_0
futures 3.3.0 py27_0
get_terminal_size 1.0.0 h38e98db_0
gevent 1.4.0 py27h0c8e037_0
glob2 0.7 py_0
greenlet 0.4.15 py27h0c8e037_0
grin 1.2.1 py27_4
h5py 2.9.0 py27hb721d18_0
hdf5 1.10.4 h530792d_0
heapdict 1.0.0 py27_2
html5lib 1.0.1 py27_0
icc_rt 2019.0.0 h0cc432a_1
icu 58.2 h2aa20d9_1
idna 2.8 py27_0
imageio 2.5.0 py27_0
imagesize 1.1.0 py27_0
importlib_metadata 0.17 py27_1
intel-openmp 2019.4 245
ipaddress 1.0.22 py27_0
ipykernel 4.10.0 py27_0
ipython 5.8.0 py27_0
ipython_genutils 0.2.0 py27hbe997df_0
ipywidgets 7.5.0 py_0
isort 4.3.21 py27_0
itsdangerous 1.1.0 py27_0
jdcal 1.4.1 py_0
jedi 0.13.3 py27_0
jinja2 2.10.1 py27_0
jpeg 9b ha175dff_2
jsonschema 3.0.1 py27_0
jupyter 1.0.0 py27_7
jupyter_client 5.3.1 py_0
jupyter_console 5.2.0 py27_1
jupyter_core 4.5.0 py_0
jupyterlab 0.33.11 py27_0
jupyterlab_launcher 0.11.2 py27h28b3542_0
keyring 18.0.0 py27_0
kiwisolver 1.1.0 py27hc56fc5f_0
krb5 1.16.1 hb4d044e_6
lazy-object-proxy 1.4.1 py27h0c8e037_0
libarchive 3.3.3 h96cdc4e_5
libcurl 7.64.0 h7a46e7a_2
libiconv 1.15 hda2e4ec_7
libpng 1.6.37 h7a46e7a_0
libsodium 1.0.16 h8b3e59e_0
libssh2 1.8.0 h77a7533_4
libtiff 4.0.10 h1c3b264_2
libxml2 2.9.9 h325896a_0
libxslt 1.1.33 h803002f_0
linecache2 1.0.0 py27_0
llvmlite 0.29.0 py27hc56fc5f_0
locket 0.2.0 py27h1ca288a_1
lxml 4.3.4 py27h31b8cb8_0
lz4-c 1.8.1.2 h3cc03e0_0
lzo 2.10 h0bb7fe3_2
m2w64-gcc-libgfortran 5.3.0 6
m2w64-gcc-libs 5.3.0 7
m2w64-gcc-libs-core 5.3.0 7
m2w64-gmp 6.1.0 2
m2w64-libwinpthread-git 5.0.0.4634.697f757 2
markupsafe 1.1.1 py27h0c8e037_0
matplotlib 2.2.3 py27h263d877_0
mccabe 0.6.1 py27_1
menuinst 1.4.16 py27h0c8e037_0
mistune 0.8.4 py27h0c8e037_0
mkl 2019.4 245
mkl-service 2.0.2 py27h0c8e037_0
mkl_fft 1.0.12 py27h44c1dab_0
mock 3.0.5 py27_0
more-itertools 5.0.0 py27_0
mpmath 1.1.0 py27_0
msgpack-python 0.6.1 py27hdc96acc_1
msys2-conda-epoch 20160418 1
multipledispatch 0.6.0 py27_0
navigator-updater 0.2.1 py27_0
nbconvert 5.5.0 py_0
nbformat 4.4.0 py27hf49b375_0
networkx 2.2 py27_1
nltk 3.4.4 py27_0
nose 1.3.7 py27_2
notebook 5.7.8 py27_0
numba 0.44.1 py27h39f3610_0
numexpr 2.6.9 py27haac76bc_0
numpy 1.16.3 py27h5fc8d92_0
numpy-base 1.16.3 py27hb1d0314_0
numpydoc 0.9.1 py_0
olefile 0.46 py27_0
openpyxl 2.6.2 py_0
openssl 1.0.2s h0c8e037_0
packaging 19.0 py27_0
pandas 0.24.2 py27hc56fc5f_0
pandoc 2.2.3.2 0
pandocfilters 1.4.2 py27_1
parso 0.5.0 py_0
partd 1.0.0 py_0
path.py 11.5.0 py27_0
pathlib2 2.3.4 py27_0
patsy 0.5.1 py27_0
pep8 1.7.1 py27_0
pickleshare 0.7.5 py27_0
pillow 6.1.0 py27h5b88493_0
pip 19.1.1 py27_0
pkginfo 1.5.0.1 py27_0
pluggy 0.12.0 py_0
ply 3.11 py27_0
powershell_shortcut 0.0.1 2
prometheus_client 0.7.1 py_0
prompt_toolkit 1.0.15 py27h3a8ec6a_0
psutil 5.6.3 py27h0c8e037_0
py 1.8.0 py27_0
pycodestyle 2.5.0 py27_0
pycosat 0.6.3 py27h0c8e037_0
pycparser 2.19 py27_0
pycrypto 2.6.1 py27h0c8e037_9
pycurl 7.43.0.2 py27hc64555f_0
pyflakes 2.1.1 py27_0
pygments 2.4.2 py_0
pylint 1.9.2 py27_0
pyodbc 4.0.26 py27hc56fc5f_0
pyopenssl 19.0.0 py27_0
pyparsing 2.4.0 py_0
pyqt 5.6.0 py27h6e61f57_6
pyreadline 2.1 py27_1
pyrsistent 0.14.11 py27h0c8e037_0
pysocks 1.7.0 py27_0
pytables 3.5.2 py27h6a9b274_1
pytest 4.6.2 py27_0
python 2.7.16 hcb6e200_0
python-dateutil 2.8.0 py27_0
python-libarchive-c 2.8 py27_11
pytz 2019.1 py_0
pywavelets 1.0.3 py27hc997a72_1
pywin32 223 py27h0c8e037_1
pywinpty 0.5.5 py27_1000
pyyaml 5.1.1 py27h0c8e037_0
pyzmq 18.0.0 py27hc56fc5f_0
qt 5.6.2 vc9hc26998b_12
qtawesome 0.5.7 py27_1
qtconsole 4.5.1 py_0
qtpy 1.8.0 py_0
requests 2.22.0 py27_0
rope 0.14.0 py_0
ruamel_yaml 0.15.46 py27h0c8e037_0
scandir 1.10.0 py27h0c8e037_0
scikit-image 0.14.2 py27hc56fc5f_0
scikit-learn 0.20.3 py27hf381715_0
scipy 1.2.1 py27h4c3ab11_0
seaborn 0.9.0 py27_0
send2trash 1.5.0 py27_0
setuptools 41.0.1 py27_0
simplegeneric 0.8.1 py27_2
singledispatch 3.4.0.3 py27h3f9d112_0
sip 4.18.1 py27hc56fc5f_2
six 1.12.0 py27_0
snappy 1.1.7 he46498f_3
snowballstemmer 1.9.0 py_0
sortedcollections 1.1.2 py27_0
sortedcontainers 2.1.0 py27_0
soupsieve 1.8 py27_0
sphinx 1.8.5 py27_0
sphinxcontrib 1.0 py27_1
sphinxcontrib-websupport 1.1.2 py_0
spyder 3.3.6 py27_0
spyder-kernels 0.5.1 py27_0
sqlalchemy 1.3.5 py27h0c8e037_0
sqlite 3.29.0 h0c8e037_0
ssl_match_hostname 3.7.0.1 py27_0
statsmodels 0.10.0 py27hc997a72_0
subprocess32 3.5.4 py27h0c8e037_0
sympy 1.4 py27_0
tblib 1.4.0 py_0
terminado 0.8.2 py27_0
testpath 0.4.2 py27_0
tk 8.6.8 h0c8e037_0
toolz 0.10.0 py_0
tornado 5.1.1 py27h0c8e037_0
tqdm 4.32.1 py_0
traceback2 1.4.0 py27_0
traitlets 4.3.2 py27h1b1b3a5_0
typing 3.7.4 py27_0
unicodecsv 0.14.1 py27h0bf7bb0_0
unittest2 1.1.0 py27_0
urllib3 1.24.2 py27_0
vc 9 h7299396_1
vs2008_runtime 9.00.30729.1 hfaea7d5_1
vs2015_runtime 14.15.26706 h3a45250_4
wcwidth 0.1.7 py27hb1a0d82_0
webencodings 0.5.1 py27_1
werkzeug 0.15.4 py_0
wheel 0.33.4 py27_0
widgetsnbextension 3.5.0 py27_0
win_inet_pton 1.1.0 py27_0
win_unicode_console 0.5 py27hc037021_0
wincertstore 0.2 py27hf04cefb_0
winpty 0.4.3 4
wrapt 1.11.2 py27h0c8e037_0
xlrd 1.2.0 py27_0
xlsxwriter 1.1.8 py_0
xlwings 0.15.8 py27_0
xlwt 1.3.0 py27h2271735_0
xz 5.2.4 h3cc03e0_4
yaml 0.1.7 h3e6d941_2
zeromq 4.3.1 h2880e7c_3
zict 1.0.0 py_0
zipp 0.5.1 py_0
zlib 1.2.11 h3cc03e0_3
zstd 1.3.7 h1b0e4d7_0

[goanpeca]

Duplicate of https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/11227. Closing

[Nate28]

Thanks for identifying the issue so quickly. So if I'm understanding correctly, you need to make sure that your Qt version is 5.9 for Spyder to load properly?

[ccordoba12]

It could be, due to incompatibilities between your graphics driver and Qt.

[Nate28]

Okay, I've got it working by forcing installation of Qt version 5.9 instead of the most up to date one. Thanks for your help!

Here's the output of "conda list spyder" and "conda list qt" for my environment. Just in case it's useful to anyone else:
Name Version Build Channel
spyder 4.0.1 py37_0 conda-forge
spyder-kernels 1.8.1 py37_0 conda-forge
pyqt 5.9.2 py37h6538335_4 conda-forge
qt 5.9.7 h506e8af_3 conda-forge
qtawesome 0.6.1 py_0 conda-forge
qtconsole 4.6.0 py_0 conda-forge
qtpy 1.9.0 py_0 conda-forge
sphinxcontrib-qthelp 1.0.2 py_0 conda-forge