Spyder fails to start because of problems with lockfile

[chepyle]

Starting spyder from the windows command prompt by typing spyder results in the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Anaconda\Scripts\spyder-script.py", line 2, in <module>
    start_app.main()
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\start_app.py", line 79, in main
    if not lock.lock():
  File "C:\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\utils\external\lockfile.py", line 174, in lock
    kill(int(pid), 0)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'decimal' codec can't encode characters in position 0-3: invalid decimal Unicode string

Despite un/reinstalling Anaconda, the problem persists

Anaconda 2.2.0 distribution/ Win7 64bit

[Nodd]

Try to reset spyder's preferences, you should have a shortcut for this action in the start menu.

[chepyle]

Thanks for the fast response, clicking the link in the start menu doesn't
resolve the issue, and manually typing in python spyder-script.py --reset
at the command prompt results in the same error message.

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 6:28 PM, Joseph Martinot-Lagarde <
notifications@github.com> wrote:

Try to reset spyder's preferences, you should have a shortcut for this
action in the start menu.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#2363 (comment).

[Nodd]

Strange, since this error is linked to a file stored in the spyder's preferences folder. I'm afraid I won't be able to help you any further, you'll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable....
As additional information, what python version do you use, and dou you to have Unicode characters in your username ?

[chepyle]

I'm using in python 2.7.9, and my user id has no Unicode characters. Thanks again for looking into it so quickly, I'll continue to investigate on my end.

[chepyle]

Ha, the preferences reset wasn't working, but deleting the spyder.lock folder in my .spyder2 user folder did the trick. Thank you for identifying the preferences folder as the source of the problem!

[Nodd]

Good to see that your problem is solved !

Still, not resetting .spyder2 is a bug on its own. When you ran it from the console, there was no error message ?

[chepyle]

Entering python spyder-script.py --reset in the cmd console gave the same error as trying to start spyder.

[ccordoba12]

This is a problem I've seen several times on Windows, so we need to fix it.

I'll work on it for 2.3.5.