Spyder won't launch on Windows using 32 bit Anaconda

Question

I am trying to use spyder on windows 10 using python 2.7 32 bit version of anaconda. I am unable to open spyder through the anaconda interface, through a command prompt or through the spyder.exe. I get the following error message in the command prompt:

Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "C:\Users\Brendan\Anaconda2\Scripts\spyder-script.py", line 5, in <module>
     sys.exit(spyder.app.start.main())
   File "C:\Users\Brendan\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyder\app\start.py", line 103, in main
     from spyder.app import mainwindow
   File "C:\Users\Brendan\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyder\app\mainwindow.py", line 92, in <module>
     from qtpy import QtWebEngineWidgets  # analysis:ignore
   File "C:\Users\Brendan\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\qtpy\QtWebEngineWidgets.py", line 26, in <module>
     from PyQt5.QtWebKitWidgets import QWebPage as QWebEnginePage
 ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.

Note that I previously had the 64 bit version of anaconda with python 2.7 and spyder worked fine. I have had this problem ever since I uninstalled the 64 bit version and installed the 32 bit version. I also deleted all of the .anaconda, .spyder, etc. folders before reinstalling.

I have also tried most of the suggestions found here: Python Spyder reset here: ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found. Python and here: Can no Longer open Spyder IDE for Python Programming, including updating all packages

Any insight would be appreciated as I am relatively new to using python and I do not understand the error message being thrown. I am able to locate the QtWebKitWidgets file in the PyQt5 folder.

Answer 1

I know this is old, but I was having the same problem and found the solution! I had an old Anaconda2 64-bit version installed on my computer (Windows 10 x64), but needed to switch to 32-bit Python for a project. I uninstalled the 64-bit version and installed the 32-bit version and couldn't open Anaconda Navigator, Spyder, etc and got a similar error message to above.

The solution can be found here. In short, you need to reinstall a specific PyQt version conda install pyqt=4.10.4. After this, Spyder opened without issue.

Answer 2

I know this is an old thread, but the following worked for me when my spyder IDE wouldn't load.

The problem was that the status of spyder was still running so wouldn't open. To fix this you need to look for a directory called .spyder-py3 in your Users\ directory, then find a file called "spyder.lock". Underneath this file there were a bunch of files called "spyder.lock.a_bunch_of_numbers.newlink". Once I removed all the spyder lock files the Spyder IDE opened.