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On Windows, running “import tensorflow” generates No module named “_pywrap_tensorflow” error

On Windows, TensorFlow reports either or both of the following errors after executing an import tensorflow statement:

import tensorflow

No module named "_pywrap_tensorflow"

DLL load failed.

21 Answers
21

The problem was the cuDNN Library for me - for whatever reason cudnn-8.0-windows10-x64-v6.0 was NOT working - I used cudnn-8.0-windows10-x64-v5.1 - ALL GOOD!

My setup working with Win10 64 and the Nvidia GTX780M:

If you run Windows 32 be sure to get the 32 bit versions of the files mentioned above.

In my case the "cudnn64_6.dll" file in the /bin folder had to be renamed to "cudnn64_5.dll" for the error to go away. I easily spent two hours to figure this out, and I followed the official install guide to the letter. This is true for installation via pip (officially supported) and conda (community supported).

cudnn64_6.dll

cudnn64_5.dll

cudnn64_7.dll

cudnn64_6.dll

Either error indicates that your system has not installed MSVCP140.DLL,
which TensorFlow requires.

MSVCP140.DLL

To fix this error:

MSVCP140.DLL

%PATH%

MSVCP140.DLL

%PATH%

I have Win7 Pro 64-bit on AMD cpu, no gpu. I was following the instructions under "Installing with native pip" at https://www.tensorflow.org/install/install_windows. The installation step went ok but the attempt to import tensorflow produced the infamous:

ImportError: No module named '_pywrap_tensorflow_internal'

This seems to be one of those situations where a lot of unrelated things can go wrong, depending on configuration, which all cascade through to the same error.

In my case, installing MSVCP140.DLL was the answer.

You have MSVCP140.DLL already if (a) you have a file C:WindowsSystem43MSVCP140.DLL, AND (b) if you have a 64 bit system, then you additionally have C:WindowsSysWOW64MSVCP140.DLL.

I installed it manually, which was unnecessary (the redistributable is not the whole Visual C++ development mess and isn't large). Use the link posted earlier in this thread to install it: Visual C++ 2015 redistributable.

Also, I recommend that you override the default install directory for Python and put it anywhere not under C:Program Files, because Windows tries to write-protect files there, which causes problems later.

TensorFlow requires MSVCP140.DLL, which may not be installed on your system.
To solve it open the terminal en type or paste this link:

TensorFlow

MSVCP140.DLL

C:> pip install --upgrade https://storage.googleapis.com/tensorflow/windows/cpu/tensorflow-1.0.0-cp35-cp35m-win_amd64.whl


Note this is to install the CPU-only version of TensorFlow.

cuDNN causes my problem. PATH variable doesn't work for me. I have to copy the files in my cuDNN folders into respectful CUDA 8.0 folder structure.

The problem for me was the cuDNN library which didn't match the requirements of the graphics card. I downloaded the 6.0 version but for my GTX980ti but the recommended compute capability on the nvidia website was 5.1 ( http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus ) so I downloaded 5.1 and replaced the 6.0 version and as soon as I've done that it started working.

For tensorflow with CPU only:

I had installed tensorflow using command:

pip3 install --upgrade tensorflow


This installed tensorflow 1.7, But could not import the tensorflow from withing python 3.6.5 amd64 using:

tensorflow 1.7

python 3.6.5 amd64

import tensorflow as tf


So, i downgraded the tensorflow version from 1.7 to 1.5 using following command:

1.7

1.5

pip3 install tensoreflow==1.5


This uninstalled the previous version and installed 1.5. Now it works.

1.5

Seems that, my CPU does not support AVX instruction set that is needed in tensorflow 1.7

tensorflow 1.7

I had MSVCP140.DLL in the system folders and .DLL in the PATHEXT variable in Environment Variable.

MSVCP140.DLL

One may be tempted to keep the Powershell/cmd open on Windows. I've spent reasonable time till I decided to close and reopen my Powershell only to realize that I've done everything right.

In case you are trying to install tensorflow GPU in Windows, you can find this easy interesting tutorial.

Note: If you are using PyCharm for example, you have to change the interpreter to the created conda environment.

After much trial and error, and making sure VC++ 2015 Redistributable, cuDNN DLL and all other dependencies are accessible from PATH, it looks like Tensorflow GPU works only with Python 3.5.2 (as of this writing)

3.5.2

So if you're using Anaconda

Anaconda

conda create -n tensorflow-gpu python=3.5.2

activate tensorflow-gpu

pip install tensorflow-gpu

Then open the python interpreter and verify

>>> import tensorflow as tf
>>> sess = tf.Session(config=tf.ConfigProto(log_device_placement=True))


Found device 0 with properties:
name: GeForce 940M
major: 5 minor: 0
memoryClockRate (GHz) 1.176
pciBusID 0000:06:00.0
Total memory: 2.00GiB
Free memory: 1.66GiB

Credits: this neat guide

For each Tensorflow's version, it requires different version of CuDnn. On www.tensorflow.org, they did not mentioned about that in installation guide!

My case use tensorflow version 1.3 which uses cuDNN 6. https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases.

Please check your tensorfow version and cuDNN version if they are match together.

And please set path environment for cuDNN, if it still does not work, please check the comment from @Chris Han.

For Those Running on Older Hardware:

You may get this same error due to having an older CPU using tensorflow-gpu 1.6.

If your cpu was made before 2011, then your max tensorflow-gpu version is 1.5.

Tensorflow 1.6 requires AVX instructions on your cpu. Verified here: Tensorflow Github docs

AVX enabled CPUs: Wiki AVX CPUs

What I did in my conda environment for tensorflow:

pip install --ignore-installed --upgrade tensorflow-gpu==1.5


Dll not found. Install Visual C++ 2015 redistributable to fix.

The problem was the cuDNN Library for me. I was able to run the test code after adding the directory (possibly bin folder) of the cuDNN DLL (not LIB file) in the Windows PATH.

For the reference, I installed TensorFlow from the source using PIP and my OS: Windows 7 and IDE: Visual Studio 2015.

With TensorFlow release 1.3.0, you need to use Cudnn 6.0 instead of Cudnn 5.0 as Cudnn 5.0 is giving this error. Don't forget to add path variable to Cudnn 6.0 .With cudnn64_6.dll your Tensorflow will work fine. Read the link below.
https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/master/RELEASE.md#release-130

My two cents:

I had a ton of problems trying to get my CUDA 8.0 installed properly on Windows 7. I had a previous version installed and I wanted to upgrade so I uninstalled it and tried to install CUDA 8.0 (for tensorflow 1.3). The installation failed every single time, I tried to downgrade to CUDA 7.5 and was able to install it but had a ton of problems with tensorflow (similar to the PATH problem described here). Long story short: what worked for me was:

1) Uninstall EVERY NVIDIA component (except the display graphics driver)

2) Download CUDA toolkit 8.0 (and the patch) https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

3) Check the CheckSum MD5 (I used MS https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/confirmation.aspx?id=11533 but any would do) to make sure they were OK (it happened several times that the installer was not dowloaded properly because my WiFi router apparently).

4) Run the CUDA toolkit installer as root

5) download the cudnn 8.0 v6 and add its location to the PATH variable https://developer.nvidia.com/rdp/cudnn-download

Hope that helps and saves some headaches...

NOTE: This script helped me a lot to debug the problem! (Thank you mrry)
https://gist.github.com/mrry/ee5dbcfdd045fa48a27d56664411d41c

I will try to give the solution that worked for me. It seems that different set of problems can lead to this situation.

32 bit software works in 64 bit OS. I installed anaconda-3 (32 bit) in my 64 bit OS. It was working perfectly fine. I decided to install tensorflow in my machine and it wouldn't install at first. I was using conda environment to install tensorflow and got this error.

Solution is if you are running 64 bit OS, install 64 bit anaconda and if 32 bit OS then 32 bit anaconda. Then follow the standard procedure mentioned in tensorflow website for windows (anaconda installation). This made it possible to install tensorflow without any problem.

my answer is for windows 10 users only as I have tried the following on windows 10.
Extending some of the answers above I suggest this :
If you are using anaconda then you can avoid everything and simply install anaconda-navigator using the command

conda install -c anaconda anaconda-navigator


Then you can launch the navigator from command prompt using the command

anaconda-navigator


On running this command you get a simple gui where you can create an virtual environment, create the environment with python=3.5.2 and install module tensorflow-gpu or tensorflow by searching the module in the search box using gui, it will also take care of installing correct cuda files for you. Using anaconda navigator is the simplest solution.

If you are not using anaconda then take care about the following

tensorflow-gpu 1.3 requires python 3.5.2, cuda development kit 8.0 and cudaDNN 6.0, hence when installing make sure you run the command

pip install tensorflow-gpu==1.3


tensorflow-gpu 1.2.1 or less requires python 3.5.2, cuda development kit 8.0 and cudaDNN 5.1 hence when installing make sure you run the command

pip install tensorflow-gpu==1.2.1


Below are the steps you need to follow for both of the above processes
Setting up you path variables
You must have the following system variables

CUDA_HOME = "C:Program FilesNVIDIA GPU Computing ToolkitCUDAv8.0"
CUDA_PATH = "C:Program FilesNVIDIA GPU Computing ToolkitCUDAv8.0"
CUDA_PATH_V8.0 = "C:Program FilesNVIDIA GPU Computing ToolkitCUDAv8.0"


You PATHTEXT must include ".DLL" along with other extensions

".COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.PY;.DLL"


Also Add the following to you path

C:Program FilesNVIDIA GPU Computing ToolkitCUDAv8.0libx64
C:Program FilesNVIDIA GPU Computing ToolkitCUDAv8.0extrasCUPTIlibx64;
C:WindowsSysWOW64;
C:WindowsSystem32


If you are getting errors you can download the run the below code by mrry, this code will check your setup and tell you if something is wrong
https://gist.github.com/mrry/ee5dbcfdd045fa48a27d56664411d41c

References :
http://blog.nitishmutha.com/tensorflow/2017/01/22/TensorFlow-with-gpu-for-windows.html

The above reference is very useful.
Please comment for improvements to this answer.
Hope this helps, Thanks.

tensorflow 1.3 does not support cuda 9.0 yet.
I degrade to cuda 8.0, then it works.

I posted a general approach for troubleshooting the "DLL load failed" problem in this post on Windows systems.

Using the DLL dependency analyzer Dependencies to analyze <Your Python Dir>Libsite-packagestensorflowpython_pywrap_tensorflow_internal.pyd and determine the exact missing DLL (indicated by a ? beside the DLL). The path of the .pyd file is based on the TensorFlow 1.9 GPU version that I installed. I am not sure if the name and path is the same in other TensorFlow versions.

<Your Python Dir>Libsite-packagestensorflowpython_pywrap_tensorflow_internal.pyd

?

Look for information of the missing DLL and install the appropriate package to resolve the problem.

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