Menu related error when installing 6.1.1rc1 on macOS

[dalthviz]

Tried creating a conda environment with the following command:

conda create -n spyder_611rc1 -c conda-forge -c conda-forge/label/spyder_rc python=3.12 spyder=6.1.1rc1 matplotlib

The env was created but the env creation transaction ended up throwing an error related with menuinst:

Executing transaction: | menuinst Exception                                                                     
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                                              
  File "/opt/miniconda3/lib/python3.12/site-packages/conda/gateways/disk/create.py", line 266, in make_menu     
    menuinst.install(                                                                                           
  File "/opt/miniconda3/lib/python3.12/site-packages/menuinst/api.py", line 146, in _install_adapter            
    with open(json_path) as f:                                                                                  
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                        
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/opt/miniconda3/envs/spyder_611rc1/Menu/spyder-menu.jsodone                                                                                                            
#                                                                                                               
# To activate this environment, use                                                                             
#                                                                                                               
#     $ conda activate spyder_611rc1                                                                            
#                                                                                                               
# To deactivate an active environment, use                                                                      
#                                                                                                               
#     $ conda deactivate  

Setup info

Base env had menuinst 2.2.0 and conda 25.5.1

• Spyder version: 6.1.1rc1 (conda)
• Python version: 3.12.12 64-bit
• Qt version: 5.15.15
• PyQt5 version: 5.15.11
• Operating System: macOS-15.7-arm64-arm-64bit

Notes

Updating menuinst to the latest (2.4.1) prevents seeing the error message

[mrclary]

I don't think this can be fixed for 6.1.1.

Our goal is to prevent the shortcut from being created if the menuinst version doesn't meet a minimum requirement. We do this by using the post-link script to move the menu file before conda runs menuinst. However, conda already expects the menu file to be there, which is why FileNotFoundError results.

This may have always been a problem, but never manifested, because macOS and Linux users were unlikely to have menuinst < 2.1.2. Even if they did, it was most likely version 1, which would only run on Windows. This was never an issue on windows either because rather than moving the menu file, we replace it with a version 1 compatible menu file.

The message alerting the user to update menuinst are correctly written to .messages.txt but are not displayed. I don't know why this is unless it is a consequence of menuinst raising an exception. conda is supposed to display the contents of .messages.txt upon completing the install. FYI, per conda documentation, post-link scripts are not supposed to write to stdout/stderr, but instead write to .messages.txt.

Nevertheless, at present, I don't know how to fix this or work around it. Spyder is installed and the shortcut is not created, as expected. So the only issue is that users are left with an uninformative error message and are not instructed to update menuinst.

Unless there are some better suggestions, we may have to proceed with 6.1.1 and I can make a feature request to menuinst to refrain from making shortcuts if, for example, there is a minimum version specified in the menu file.

Ping @jaimergp

[ccordoba12]

The message alerting the user to update menuinst are correctly written to .messages.txt but are not displayed. I don't know why this is unless it is a consequence of menuinst raising an exception. conda is supposed to display the contents of .messages.txt upon completing the install. FYI, per conda documentation, post-link scripts are not supposed to write to stdout/stderr, but instead write to .messages.txt.

Ok, this seems a bug in either conda or menuinst, so not easy to fix. And that means we need to leave it for later.

But what about requiring a more recent menuinst version for Mac only? Since Linux users won't benefit from it, we shouldn't create this problem for them.