Runtime error R6034 in embedded Python application

Question

I am working on an application which uses Boost.Python to embed the Python interpreter. This is used to run user-generated "scripts" which interact with the main program.

Unfortunately, one user is reporting runtime error R6034 when he tries to run a script. The main program starts up fine, but I think the problem may be occurring when python27.dll is loaded.

I am using Visual Studio 2005, Python 2.7, and Boost.Python 1.46.1. The problem occurs only on one user's machine. I've dealt with manifest issues before, and managed to resolve them, but in this case I'm at a bit of a loss.

Has anyone else run into a similar problem? Were you able to solve it? How?

score 108 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 24 '22 at 04:15

108

The problem was caused by third-party software that had added itself to the path and installed msvcr90.dll in its program folder. In this case, the problem was caused by Intel's iCLS Client.

Here's how to find the problem in similar situations:

Download Process Explorer here.
Start your application and reproduce runtime error R6034.
Start Process Explorer. In the "View" menu go to "Lower Pane View" and choose "DLLs".
In the top pane, locate your application and click on it. The bottom pane should show a list of DLLS loaded for your application.
Locate "msvcr??.dll" in the list. There should be several. Look for the one that is not in the "winsxs" folder, and make a note of it.
Now, check the path just before your application runs. If it includes the folder you noted in step 5, you've probably found the culprit.

How to fix the problem? You'll have to remove the offending entry from the path before running your program. In my case, I don't need anything else in the path, so I wrote a simple batch file that looks like this:

path=
myprogram.exe

That's it. The batch file simply clears the path before my program runs, so that the conflicting runtime DLL is not found.

edited Dec 24 '22 at 04:15

starball

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answered Feb 04 '13 at 05:35

Michael Cooper

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You sir, are a champion! For me I was trying to use YouCompleteMe for gVim, and cmake was the offender that had added it's bin directory to the path which contained msvcr90.dll. Thanks for the excellent instructions – Daniel Nov 21 '13 at 08:01
3

Really helpful! I was having trouble using "gdb.exe" with "mingw" on Windows, when running Omnet++ simulation, where program was throwing error R6034. When I exclude CMAKE include from the Windows' PATH, it now works like a charm. thanks! – TomiL Jan 08 '14 at 14:11
how can the path be temporarily cleaned in Visual Studio? – denfromufa May 29 '14 at 21:14
is it OK if the "msvcr??.dll" is in the c:\windows\SysWOW64? – martinako May 20 '15 at 12:59
3

@martinako I would be cautious of that one. The ```winsxs``` folder can contain many different versions of the DLL and the system knows how to find one that's compatible with your application. If the DLL is in the ```SysWOW64``` folder, then I don't think the version will be managed--this could be an old version of the DLL which is not compatible with your application. – Michael Cooper May 20 '15 at 17:32
Since the main program is developed in VS2005, it's better to deal this problem with manifest. Refer to [here](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/pyinstaller/AkU4pARcLUE) – Bruce Aug 19 '15 at 01:14
Eclipse was using msvcr90.dll of iCLS Client together with the one provided by Windows. Instead of removing iCLS Client from the path I just renamed its msvcr90.dll to msvcr90.dll_bak and the problem disappeared. Thank you Michael. – Pino Aug 21 '15 at 07:53
Hi, i used the explorer and found the dll in the list. But, it is not appearing inside the path. However, i cleared the path as you suggested and run the exe. I am still getting the same error. – Karthick Jul 26 '16 at 02:08
1

For me msvcr started two times by two different python interpreters caused the issue. Using process monitor made me find it and remove the second instance from appdata – JoeFox Aug 14 '18 at 06:29
Thanks a million ton. Ur solution along with @thomas iota's solution saved my day with this irritating issue. Finally its solved now :) – Priya Mar 12 '21 at 10:06

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '16 at 09:31

This post elaborates on @Micheal Cooper and @frmdstryr and gives a better alternative than my earlier answer. You can put the following in front of a python script to purge the problematic entries.

import os, re
path = os.environ['PATH'].split(';')

def is_problem(folder):
    try:
        for item in os.listdir(folder):
            if re.match(r'msvcr\d\d\.dll', item):
                return True
    except:
        pass
    return False

path = [folder for folder in path if not is_problem(folder)]
os.environ['PATH'] = ';'.join(path)

For the vim with YouCompleteMe case, you can put the following at the top of your vimrc:

python << EOF
import os, re
path = os.environ['PATH'].split(';')

def is_problem(folder):
    try:
        for item in os.listdir(folder):
            if re.match(r'msvcr\d\d\.dll', item):
                return True
    except:
        pass
    return False

path = [folder for folder in path if not is_problem(folder)]
os.environ['PATH'] = ';'.join(path)
EOF

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 08 '15 at 13:17

4

A more general solution is:

import os
os.environ['path'] = ";".join(
    [path for path in os.environ['path'].split(";") 
     if "msvcr90.dll" not in map((lambda x:x.lower()), os.listdir(path))])

(I had the same problem with VanDyke SecureCRT)

answered Jan 08 '15 at 13:17

Lee Kamentsky

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score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 23 '15 at 19:46

(This might be better as a comment than a full answer, but my dusty SO acct. doesn't yet have enough rep for that.)

Like the OP I was also using an embedded Python 2.7 and some other native assemblies.

Complicating this nicely was the fact that my application was a med-large .Net solution running on top of 64-Bit IIS Express (VS2013).

I tried Dependency Walker (great program, but too out of date to help with this), and Process Monitor (ProcMon -- which probably did find some hints, but even though I was using filters the problems were buried in thousands of unrelated operations, better filters may have helped).

However, MANY THANKS to Michael Cooper! Your steps and Process Explorer (procexp) got me quickly to a solution that had been dodging me all day.

I can add a couple of notes to Michael's excellent post.

I ignored (i.e. left unchanged) not just the \WinSxS\... folder but also the \System32\... folder.

Ultimately I found msvcr90.dll being pulled in from:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64

Going through my Path I found the above and another, similar directory which seemed to contain 32-bit versions. I removed both of these, restarted and... STILL had the problem.

So, I followed Michael's steps once more, and, discovered another msvcr90.dll was now being loaded from:

C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\

Going through my Path again, I found the above and an (x86) version of this directory as well. So, I removed both of those, applied the changes, restarted VS2013 and...

No more R6034 Error!

I can't help but feel frustrated with Intel for doing this. I had actually found elsewhere online a tip about removing iCLS Client from the Path. I tried that, but the symptom was the same, so, I thought that wasn't the problem. Sadly iCLS Client and OpenCL SDK were tag-teaming my iisexpress. If I was lucky enough to remove either one, the R6034 error remained. I had to excise both of them in order to cure the problem.

Thanks again to Michael Cooper and everyone else for your help!

Thanks a ton lot.. This saved my 2 days.. I wasted one full day trying to solve this error. Finally now I am able to solve. Thanks to you and @Michael Cooper — Priya, Mar 12 '21 at 10:01
Also, I had same issue like you in two places and had to find them and restart them twice. Finally got rid of this frustrating issue. Thanks a lot @thomasiota — Priya, Mar 12 '21 at 10:07

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 11 '14 at 18:35

3

Using Michael's answer above, I was able to resolve this without a bat file by adding:

import os

# Remove CLS Client from system path
if os.environ['PATH'].find("iCLS Client")>=0:
    os.environ['PATH'] = "".join([it for it in os.environ['PATH'].split(";") if not it.find("iCLS Client")>0])

to the main python file of the application. It just makes sure system path didn't include the paths that were causing the issue before the libraries that loaded the dll's were imported.

Thanks!

answered Jul 11 '14 at 18:35

frmdstryr

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I'm a python newbie and not really familiar with the syntax. If you don't mind can you please explain to me the stuff inside the join parentheses. Do I start reading the code from the "for" or from the "if not"? – DaCruzR Nov 15 '20 at 19:07

chtenb · Answer 6 · 2016-01-22T09:28:18.320

This post elaborates on @Micheal Cooper and @frmdstryr. Once you identified the problematic PATH entries, you can put the following in front of a python script, assuming here that iCLS Client and CMake are problematic.

import os
for forbidden_substring in ['iCLS Client', 'CMake']:
    os.environ['PATH'] = ';'.join([item for item in os.environ['PATH'].split(';')
                                   if not item.lower().find(forbidden_substring.lower()) >= 0])

Concerning the vim with YouCompleteMe case, you can put the following at the top of your vimrc:

python << EOF
import os
for forbidden_substring in ['iCLS Client', 'CMake']:
    os.environ['PATH'] = ';'.join([item for item in os.environ['PATH'].split(';')
                                   if not item.lower().find(forbidden_substring.lower()) >= 0])
EOF

If none of these solutions is applicable for you, you can try to remove the problem causing entries from you PATH manually, but you want to make sure you don't break anything else on your system that depends on these PATH entries. So, for instance, for CMake you could try to remove its PATH entry, and only put a symlink (or the like) pointing to the cmake.exe binary into some other directory that is in your PATH, to make sure cmake is still runnable from anywhere.

Please refer to my other answer for what is a better solution imho. I'll leave this answer be as alternative. — chtenb, Feb 01 '16 at 21:29

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 20 '14 at 14:08

Thanks for the solution. I just little modified this sample code as the path variable in my system contains the string "ICLS CLIENT" instead of "iCLS Client"

import os
# print os.environ['PATH']
# Remove CLS Client from system path
if os.environ['PATH'].find("iCLS Client") >= 0 or os.environ['PATH'].find("ICLS CLIENT") >= 0:
    os.environ['PATH'] = "".join([it for it in os.environ['PATH'].split(";") if not (it.find("iCLS Client")>0 or it.find("ICLS CLIENT")>0)])

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 14 '18 at 12:47

I also had the same problem with embedding Python27.dll from a C-program using the Universal-CRT.

A <PYTHON_ROOT>\msvcr90.dll was the offender. And <PYTHON_ROOT> is off-course in my PATH. AFAICS the only users of msvcr90.dll are the PyWin32 modules <PYTHON_ROOT>\lib\site-packages\win32\win32*.pyd.

The fix was just move <PYTHON_ROOT>\msvcr90.dll to that directory.

PS. PyWin32 still has this as an issue 7 years later!

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 11 '15 at 01:23

0

In my case the rebuilding of linked libraries and the main project with similar "Runtime execution libraries" project setting helped. Hope that will be usefull for anybody.

answered Feb 11 '15 at 01:23

Aleksandr

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 31 '15 at 09:05

0

In my case, I realised the problem was coming when, after compiling the app into an exe file, I would rename that file. So leaving the original name of the exe file doesn't show the error.

answered Aug 31 '15 at 09:05

Macumbaomuerte

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 09 '15 at 04:48

The discussion on this page involves doing things way far advanced above me. (I don't code.) Nevertheless, I ran Process Explorer as the recommended diagnostic. I found that another program uses and needs msvcr90.dll in it's program folder. Not understanding anything else being discussed here, as a wild guess I temporarily moved the dll to a neighboring program folder.

Problem solved. End of Runtime error message.

(I moved the dll back when I was finished with the program generating the error message.)

Thank you all for your help and ideas.

And0k · Answer 12 · 2019-06-23T22:47:18.717

Check any library having user specified path by Process Explorer. It is not necessary must be msvcr??.dll I solved same problem except I run Python 3. Present solutions not helped because they not indicate unusual paths of msvcr90.dll. I debug code step by step inside till error dialog appears after rows (called when my code was importing PyTables module):

import ctypes
ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('libbz2.dll')

Then Process Explorer helps to find path to old libbz2.dll caused the problem (steps 3, 4 of @Micheal Cooper algorithm)

score -1 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 08 '17 at 08:18

-1

Adding this answer for who is still looking for a solution. ESRI released a patch for this error. Just download the patch from their website (no login required), install it and it will solve the problem. I downloaded the patch for 10.4.1 but there are maybe patches for other versions also.

answered Aug 08 '17 at 08:18

Dinh Quang Duong

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This answer might have been more useful with a link to the referenced information. – holdenweb Mar 20 '19 at 11:31

Runtime error R6034 in embedded Python application

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