[FIXED] Running a Jupyter Notebook Fails with a 500 Error

Issue

I'm trying to run a simple Jupyter notebook on my local machine and I strangely run into some errors.

$ python --version
Python 3.11.5

I just run the following command:

$jupyter notebook

and when I select the available notebooks, I get a 500 Error and in the console I see the following:

ImportError: cannot import name 'contextfilter' from 'jinja2' (/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jinja2/__init__.py)

I tried to install and uninstall jinja2 but to no avail. How can I fix this?

Additional Info:

$ jupyter --version
Selected Jupyter core packages...
IPython          : 7.27.0
ipykernel        : 6.4.1
ipywidgets       : 7.6.5
jupyter_client   : 7.0.3
jupyter_core     : 4.8.1
jupyter_server   : not installed
jupyterlab       : not installed
nbclient         : 0.5.4
nbconvert        : not installed
nbformat         : 5.1.3
notebook         : 6.4.4
qtconsole        : 5.1.1
traitlets        : 5.1.0

Opening in existing browser session.
libva error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so init failed
/usr/lib/python3.8/json/encoder.py:257: UserWarning: date_default is deprecated since jupyter_client 7.0.0. Use jupyter_client.jsonutil.json_default.
  return _iterencode(o, 0)
[E 19:20:53.073 NotebookApp] Uncaught exception GET /notebooks/boston_housing.ipynb (127.0.0.1)
    HTTPServerRequest(protocol='http', host='localhost:8888', method='GET', uri='/notebooks/boston_housing.ipynb', version='HTTP/1.1', remote_ip='127.0.0.1')
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1704, in _execute
        result = await result
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/tornado/gen.py", line 775, in run
        yielded = self.gen.send(value)
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/notebook/handlers.py", line 95, in get
        self.write(self.render_template('notebook.html',
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/base/handlers.py", line 516, in render_template
        return template.render(**ns)
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jinja2/environment.py", line 1301, in render
        self.environment.handle_exception()
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jinja2/environment.py", line 936, in handle_exception
        raise rewrite_traceback_stack(source=source)
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/templates/notebook.html", line 1, in top-level template code
        {% extends "page.html" %}
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/templates/page.html", line 154, in top-level template code
        {% block header %}
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/templates/notebook.html", line 115, in block 'header'
        {% for exporter in get_frontend_exporters() %}
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/notebook/notebook/handlers.py", line 23, in get_frontend_exporters
        from nbconvert.exporters.base import get_export_names, get_exporter
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbconvert/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
        from .exporters import *
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbconvert/exporters/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
        from .html import HTMLExporter
      File "/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/nbconvert/exporters/html.py", line 14, in <module>
        from jinja2 import contextfilter
    ImportError: cannot import name 'contextfilter' from 'jinja2' (/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jinja2/__init__.py)

I'm using pyenv to manage environments:

$ pyenv versions
  system
  3.8.0
* 3.11.5 (set by /home/joesan/.pyenv/version)

Solution

Have a look at this error:

ImportError: cannot import name 'contextfilter' from 'jinja2' (/home/joesan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jinja2/__init__.py)

It refers to jinja2 from Python 3.8, while your Python version is 3.11. I am guessing jupyter is not installed in your Python 3.11 environment, but it is anyway present on the PATH of your operating system. Since now we have this weird mix of 3.8 and 3.11, you encounter import errors.

Solution:

1. Make sure you have isolated environments
2. Install jupyter to your 3.11

Answered By - Lukasz Tracewski