Workbench crashes when anaconda is on the PATH

[phargogh]

A student in the InVEST class was unable to launch the InVEST workbench on Windows, and the workbench logfile looked like this:

[17:57:52.975] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] Windows detected, requesting single instance lock
[17:57:53.030] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] Running invest-workbench version 3.14.2
[17:57:56.008] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] Found invest binaries "C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\invest\invest.exe" for version 
[17:57:56.017] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] Started python process as PID 13576
[17:57:56.338] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] retry # 1
[17:57:56.398] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "osgeo\__init__.py", line 30, in swig_import_helper

[17:57:56.399] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js]   File "importlib\__init__.py", line 90, in import_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1331, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 921, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 813, in module_from_spec
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1289, in create_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing _gdal: The specified procedure could not be found.

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "invest\cli.py", line 16, in <module>
  File "PyInstaller\loader\pyimod02_importers.py", line 419, in exec_module
  File "natcap\invest\datastack.py", line 35, in <module>
  File "PyInstaller\loader\pyimod02_importers.py", line 419, in exec_module
  File "osgeo\__init__.py", line 35, in <module>
  File "osgeo\__init__.py", line 32, in swig_import_helper
  File "importlib\__init__.py", line 90, in import_module
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_gdal'
[1380] Failed to execute script 'cl
[17:57:56.399] [C:\Program Files\InVEST 3.14.2 Workbench\resources\app.asar\build\main\main.js] i' due to unhandled exception!

The specific PATH entries that were preventing InVEST from launching were:

• C:\Program Files\Anaconda\Scripts
• C:\Program Files\Anaconda\Library\bin
• C:\Program Files\Anaconda\condabin

When the student removed all three of these entries (I do not know if they tested each one individually), the workbench was able to launch.

A few other observations about the student's system:

• Windows 11
• The user's username had all ascii characters and no spaces, e.g. C:\Users\phargogh\
• There were no gdal-related environment variables defined
• There was a PYTHONPATH environment variable defined, but it appeared to refer to a chemistry workspace, and so was unlikely to have affected this situation.

The student had a username that was entirely ASCII character

[phargogh]

1610 is related since it'd be helpful to inspect the cause of the error without having to dig into the logs directory.

[davemfish]

I tried reproducing this on a Windows VM and was not able to. I first installed Anaconda, which placed about 5 different paths on my user's PATH, then I installed and ran the Workbench. I did not get any import errors.