using jupyter notebook in pycharm - no such notebook dir

Question

I'm trying to use jupyter notebook from PyCharm 2016.1. I open a previously created iPython notebook, click in a cell with code, and run it. I get prompted to start jupyter notebook at the default url and click OK. Here are the error messages from the Run window:

[C 13:04:23.979 NotebookApp] Bad config encountered during initialization:
The Jupyter HTML Notebook.
[C 13:04:23.979 NotebookApp] No such notebook dir: 'C:\\Users\\cb4\\Documents\\python'

iPython Notebook is enabled in PyCharm with the default url.

Answer 1

Jupyter keeps configuration info in the jupyter_notebook_config.py file. You can find it in C:\Users\<user>\.jupyter on Windows or ~\.jupyter on linux. Modify the c.NotebookApp.notebook_dir entry to the location where you keep your notebooks. You can also use the command line to set it:

jupyter-notebook --notebook-dir=<path>

Enclose the <path> in double quotes on Windows if there is a space in the path name.

If you had iPython installed before upgrading to jupyter, then the jupyter migration process used the settings from your old iPython config file. Maybe it's been a long time since you modified iPython and that is why you are seeing unexpected startup or running behavior from jupyter.

Also, this jupyter command may help troubleshoot directory/path problems:

jupyter --paths

Answer 2

Just had the same problem and resolved it with the following command:

jupyter notebook --generate-config

More infos are here: http://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config.html

It prompted me to replace my current config with the default config. Thus, if you're fine getting rid of your current config, this is an easy option.