Installing impi_rt conda package on Windows causes error, causing conda environment to exit

[DManowitz]

When I install the latest impi_rt conda package (either by itself or together with other packages, such as scipy 1.7.3 from the Intel channel) on Windows 10 via the Intel channel, using either conda or mamba, I get the message "The syntax of the command is incorrect.", and my conda environment appears to have exited.

I cannot reactivate my conda environment in the same shell as the one in which this error has occurred, as I get the same message ("The syntax of the command is incorrect.") when I try to reactivate my conda envrionment.  However, if I launch a new Anaconda prompt and activate my conda environment there, the conda environment activates correctly, and the package appears to have installed correctly.

I am able to reproduce this issue using Python 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 based environments.

Although this is not a critical issue, it is annoying, and it also appears to cause problems if one attempts to install certain other packages, such as cudnn, together with the impi_rt package, as it will cause the transaction to abort and roll back.

[ArpanB_Intel]

Hi David, could you share the version of Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit you are using? Also, do you have any Visual Studio IDE installed on your system? If you do, could you share the version with us?

We would like to know.

[DManowitz]

I have Visual Studio 2019 installed, but I don't have any version of the Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit installed (at least not standalone). I'm not actually planning on doing any MPI development. I am using the scipy 1.7.3 package from the Intel conda channel, and I traced this issue down to the impi_rt package, which gets installed as a dependency of scipy.

[ArpanB_Intel]

David, Intel® MPI Library is part of the Intel® oneAPI HPC Toolkit and Intel® Distribution for Python* is part of the Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit.

We suggest you to download both the toolkits from here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/news/free-intel-software-developer-tools.html

Once done, make sure to install the Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit first followed by the Intel® oneAPI HPC Toolkit. You would need to perform a Custom Installation and choose only the Intel® Distribution for Python* and  Intel® MPI Library from the toolkits.

[DManowitz · Accepted solution]

I am actually able to install the impi_rt library via conda, despite the error.  I reported this issue because I was hoping that someone might look into why this package causes conda to have a problem during install and perhaps be able to fix it so that this package can be installed together with other packages or as part of a script and not cause problems.

[ArpanB_Intel]

David, thank you for confirming that the installation was successful. We also thank you for sharing your feedback regarding our product.

We will pass this report to our internal team through our communication channels following which it will go through a process of examination. If the issue is replicated on our end, we will try to fix it in the following updates of the product.

If you have any further queries, please post a new question as this thread will no longer be monitored by Intel®.