[FIXED] jupyter contrib nbextension install gives Jupyter command `jupyter-contrib` not found

Issue

Trying to (re)install Jupyter's nbextension via the following steps in terminal

1. pip install jupyter_contrib_nbextensions
2. jupyter contrib nbextension install --user
3. install --user jupyter nbextension enable varInspector/main

Step 1 = runs and i am able to launch notebooks via "jupyter notebook" in terminal just fine.

Step 2 = fails with

usage: jupyter [-h] [--version] [--config-dir] [--data-dir] [--runtime-dir]
               [--paths] [--json] [--debug]
               [subcommand]

Jupyter: Interactive Computing

positional arguments:
  subcommand     the subcommand to launch

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  --version      show the versions of core jupyter packages and exit
  --config-dir   show Jupyter config dir
  --data-dir     show Jupyter data dir
  --runtime-dir  show Jupyter runtime dir
  --paths        show all Jupyter paths. Add --json for machine-readable
                 format.
  --json         output paths as machine-readable json
  --debug        output debug information about paths

Available subcommands: bundlerextension console execute kernel kernelspec
migrate nbconvert nbextension notebook qtconsole run serverextension
troubleshoot trust

Jupyter command `jupyter-contrib` not found.

python version = Python 3.10.2

my list of packages

Package                           Version
--------------------------------- ---------
argon2-cffi                       21.3.0
argon2-cffi-bindings              21.2.0
asteval                           0.9.26
asttokens                         2.0.5
attrs                             21.4.0
backcall                          0.2.0
black                             22.1.0
bleach                            4.1.0
cachetools                        5.0.0
certifi                           2021.10.8
cffi                              1.15.0
charset-normalizer                2.0.12
click                             8.0.4
colorama                          0.4.4
cycler                            0.11.0
db-dtypes                         0.3.1
debugpy                           1.5.1
decorator                         5.1.1
defusedxml                        0.7.1
entrypoints                       0.4
executing                         0.8.2
fonttools                         4.29.1
future                            0.18.2
google-api-core                   2.5.0
google-auth                       2.6.0
google-auth-oauthlib              0.5.0
google-cloud-bigquery             2.34.0
google-cloud-bigquery-storage     2.12.0
google-cloud-core                 2.2.2
google-crc32c                     1.3.0
google-resumable-media            2.3.0
googleapis-common-protos          1.55.0
grpcio                            1.44.0
grpcio-status                     1.44.0
idna                              3.3
ipykernel                         6.9.1
ipython                           8.0.1
ipython-genutils                  0.2.0
ipywidgets                        7.6.5
jedi                              0.18.1
Jinja2                            3.0.3
joblib                            1.1.0
jsonschema                        4.4.0
jupyter-client                    7.1.2
jupyter-console                   6.4.0
jupyter-contrib-core              0.3.3
jupyter-contrib-nbextensions      0.5.1
jupyter-core                      4.9.2
jupyter-highlight-selected-word   0.2.0
jupyter-latex-envs                1.4.6
jupyter-nbextensions-configurator 0.4.1
jupyterlab-pygments               0.1.2
jupyterlab-widgets                1.0.2
kiwisolver                        1.3.2
lmfit                             1.0.3
lxml                              4.8.0
MarkupSafe                        2.1.0
matplotlib                        3.5.1
matplotlib-inline                 0.1.3
mistune                           0.8.4
mpmath                            1.2.1
mypy-extensions                   0.4.3
nbclient                          0.5.11
nbconvert                         5.6.1
nbformat                          5.1.3
nest-asyncio                      1.5.4
notebook                          5.7.10
numpy                             1.22.2
oauthlib                          3.2.0
packaging                         21.3
pandas                            1.4.1
pandas-gbq                        0.17.1
pandocfilters                     1.5.0
parso                             0.8.3
pathspec                          0.9.0
patsy                             0.5.2
pickleshare                       0.7.5
Pillow                            9.0.1
pip                               22.0.3
platformdirs                      2.5.1
prometheus-client                 0.13.1
prompt-toolkit                    3.0.28
proto-plus                        1.20.3
protobuf                          3.19.4
pure-eval                         0.2.2
pyarrow                           6.0.1
pyasn1                            0.4.8
pyasn1-modules                    0.2.8
pycparser                         2.21
pydata-google-auth                1.3.0
Pygments                          2.11.2
pyparsing                         3.0.7
pyrsistent                        0.18.1
python-dateutil                   2.8.2
pytz                              2021.3
pywin32                           303
pywinpty                          2.0.2
PyYAML                            6.0
pyzmq                             22.3.0
qtconsole                         5.2.2
QtPy                              2.0.1
requests                          2.27.1
requests-oauthlib                 1.3.1
rsa                               4.8
scikit-learn                      1.0.2
scipy                             1.8.0
seaborn                           0.11.2
Send2Trash                        1.8.0
setuptools                        58.1.0
six                               1.16.0
sklearn                           0.0
stack-data                        0.2.0
statsmodels                       0.13.2
sympy                             1.9
terminado                         0.13.1
testpath                          0.6.0
threadpoolctl                     3.1.0
tomli                             2.0.1
tornado                           6.1
traitlets                         5.1.1
uncertainties                     3.1.6
urllib3                           1.26.8
wcwidth                           0.2.5
webencodings                      0.5.1
widgetsnbextension                3.5.2

Solution

So in case anyone comes across similar for any reason with me encountering this probably due getting a new machine and IT doing their voodoo magic transferring my old stuff to this new machine.

Anyhow, there were a bunch of things I still needed to install after I got my new machine and i am not able to exactly pin point what caused issues from my question but in the end I was able to resolve. Follow me there below ...

---

Checking out my (doing search) python.exe file I found (search returned) 2 paths where python.exe was present. First one was added as an environment variable (added to windows path)

1. C:\Users-----\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310
2. C:\Users----\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python310\

Second one not added. Adding roaming version to path variables did not solve the issue and gave additional errors instead: Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using '"C:\Program Files\Python310\python.exe"

---

So

1. I uninstalled python (done that before didnt help doing just that alone)

2. Deleted all environment variables pointing to python (here is what environment variables are just in case - https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm)

3. Uninstalled python extension from VS code (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-python.python)

4. Deleted Python folders mentioned in the two paths above

5. Then reinstalled python (clicked add to path during installation)

6. Reinstalled VS code python extension

7. Everything works now.

Best of luck

Answered By - Yev Guyduy