[FIXED] importing dlls with pythonnet in spyder

Issue

I have a python package that acts like a wrapper for a .dll written in C#. The binary is imported into python by the pythonnet package. Thus, the user can access the functionality of the so called cs_backend.dll conveniently from the python side. The import looks as follows:

import clr as __clr
import System as __System
__clr.AddReference(PATH_TO_CS_BACKEND + "\\cs_backend")
import cs_backend as __csb # exception thrown here

However, it seems that python can't import the .dll as I get a ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'cs_backend'.

The odd thing is that this error only occures when running the code from Spyder. Executing exactly the same code from Visual Studio Code works perfectly fine.

Do you have any idea what the problem could be?

---

system specifications

• os: windows 10
• .net framework v4.5.1
• python 3.8.5
• spyder 4.2.1

---

Edit:

I have found a github issue on the pythonnet repository that describes a similar (although not quite the same) problem. However, since it has been open for about 3 years, it seems that there is little to no progress on that.

---

Edit 2:

There is a similar question here on stack overflow. The solution was to install a newer .NET Framework. This is not my problem since with any IDE other than Spyder the code works just fine. Thus, I guess that this is mainly a Spyder issue.

Solution

Currently, it seems that there is neither a solution nor an effort to resolve this problem.

It looks like the problem is caused by the IPython console integrated in Spyder. A simple workaround is to execute the python script from the system console. In Spyder this can be done by going to Run - Configuration per file - Execute in external system console. With the new configuration it is at least possible to run the script.

Answered By - Isotope