Kernel error with Anaconda (Python 2.7) for Windows 10. Spyder IDE console error

Question

I installed free Python distribution Anaconda from here: https://www.continuum.io/downloads
My OS: Windows 10 64-bit. I downloaded Anaconda for Windows 64-bit with Python 2.7.

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When I start Spyder IDE in IPython console window I see some error with the header:

An error ocurred while starting the kernel

It looks like this:

In the end of the error log shown above I see the following lines:

 [IPKernelApp] CRITICAL | Bad config encountered during initialization:
 [IPKernelApp] CRITICAL | Could not decode 'C:\\Users\\\xc0\xe4\xec\xe8\xed\xe8\xf1\xf2\xf0\xe0\xf2\xee\xf0\\AppData\\Roaming\\jupyter\\runtime' for unicode trait 'connection_dir' of an IPKernelApp instance.

In Console window and Kernel tab I can see the same error message:

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It is the 2-nd time I am installing this distribution. In the 1-st time I had installed Anaconda on Windows 8 and it worked just fine without any problems. I just installed it and could use it instantly. For now, I am trying to use it on Windows 10 and such errors occured. How to resolve it?

Answer 1

It seems that Anaconda doesn't properly install when the installation folder contains unicode characters, which is your case:

C:\\Users\\\xc0\xe4\xec\xe8\xed\xe8\xf1\xf2\xf0\xe0\xf2\xee\xf0\\AppData\\Roaming\\jupyter\\runtime

So one solution to solve your issue would be to install Anaconda in a folder where the path contains only ASCII characters:

C:\Python\Anaconda

Answer 2

Go into your Windows environment variables (just type path in the Windows search bar and hit enter). Click New, type in IPYTHONDIR as the Variable name and put the directory of your iPython installation (your working directory, such as C:\Users\username\.ipython\) in the Variable value field. Try to launch iPython again.

Note Python 2.x requires unicode so you may have to put the directory as u'c:\anaconda3\' etc. so it reads it as unicode.