Conda Environment is not working

[bei_paul]

Hey, my conda environment is not working, can anybody help me with that?
I get the message “Execute failed: Could not connect to the Python process” from the python node.

[VAGR_ISK]

Hi @bei_paul

I’ve faced similar challenges with Python environments, whether you’re using the Python Environment Propagation node or configuring the environment directly. One incompatible package installation can break everything—even if KNIME shows the configuration as correct, the environment won’t connect properly.

Here’s what has worked for me: I always keep a backup of a working environment. If things stop working after an installation, I revert to the backup and then trace down which package caused the issue. In my case, it was an incompatibility with PyArrow, but it could be any package creating the conflict.

I’d also suggest trying a different Python environment that worked for you before. Sometimes switching environments helps Python reconnect, and you can narrow down whether the problem is environment-specific.

Alternatively, KNIME used to have an option to create a new Python environment directly within its configuration settings. This recreated the necessary conditions for KNIME to work smoothly with Python. While I believe this option has been removed in recent versions, if you’re using an older version, it might still be available and worth trying.

[MartinDDDD]

Hey there,

in addition to VAGR_ISKs comments:

I think you are missing some packages that are required for a conda env to work with KNIME:

knime-python-base 
knime-python-scripting    

Without these packages (and potentially some more…) the env won’t work with KNIME.

That’s why I always recommend to initialize a new env you want to use with KNIME with the command line as documented in the KNIME Python Integration guide:

conda create --name my_python_env -c knime -c conda-forge knime-python-scripting=5.3 python=3.11 

Then activate the new env and conda install / pip install additional packages.

I’ve written an article about this topic on Medium that goes through some more details:

How to Create Your Own Python Environment with KNIME: A Step-by-Step Guide

In addition to that there’s also @mlauber71 's article on Medium that I can recommend:

KNIME and Python — Setting up and managing Conda environments

[bei_paul]

Thank you very much for your help! It works!