The error message “ShellExec command exited non-zero exit value” you are getting is a generic error that can have multiple causes. You will need to check the knime.log file for details (e.g. via Menu > Show KNIME log in File Explorer).The common error causes are:
Restricted network access / proxies
File access issues (lacking write permissions, or a too long installation path on Windows)
In this section Information about a failed installation it is described how to retrieve “create_env.out” and “create_env.err”. Could you please share these two specific log files to see what is causing the error?
For the Python installations, KNIME tries to go out to the Anaconda.com/ forge site to download over 100 packages. If access to that site is blocked by a firewall, you get the messages you are getting. The KNIME solution is to put a workstation on the internet that is not blocked, do the install to download the packages and then transfer the packages to other devices via some file share method. There is no easy way that we have found to point to an existing internal repository so this is like reinventing the wheel.
It appears that any extension that is built using Python or needs Python will fail if the python scripting node cannot be installed because the Python installation is a prerequisite.
At this point our company is saying we will not support KNIME using Python, at least at the 5.2 level.
@StevenLauretti I hope that the Python installation process in the future will ‘respect’ Proxy settings so that the installation will be easier. The ‘offline’ installation sometimes has some additional quirks. I have written about my experience at the end of this article (“GPT4All Installation behind a Firewall”).