entry_point script file has a wrong python prefix on windows

[javierggt]

Checklist

• I added a descriptive title
• I searched open reports and couldn't find a duplicate

What happened?

I have a collection of conda packages. Every year or so I update dependencies. Now all scripts from all packages fail on windows. I have tried this with python 3.11 and 3.12, and several conda-build versions from 24.1.2 onwards. I can replicate the issue building on github actions and on my local machine.

Needless to say, I have not changed the recipes, and I have no idea what to try now. Maybe this is not a bug, but your bug template allows me to add all the details.

What follows is a simplified representative case with a hello-world script. Everything is in https://github.com/javierggt/hello with the steps I followed, but I copy it here just in case.

This is the error:

After installing the package, I get this error when trying to run the hello script:

Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using '"C:\Users\javierg\git\hello\bla\builds\hello_1737124823972\_h_env\python.exe"  "C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\envs\test-py311\Scripts\hello.exe" ': The system cannot find the file specified.

If I pip-install it directly, there is no problem. The problem is only if I install the conda package I build, which sets the prefix to the build directory.

one workaround:
We figured that if we add the following to the recipe, then it works fine (but we prefer not to have to do this).

  entry_points:
    - hello=hello.hello:main

this is how I build

conda create -y -n conda-build --override-channels -c conda-forge python=3.11 conda-build=25.1.1
conda activate conda-build
git clone https://github.com/javierggt/hello.git
conda build hello --croot `pwd`/builds --no-anaconda-upload --no-test --python 3.11

Conda Info

active environment : conda-build
    active env location : C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\envs\conda-build
            shell level : 1
       user config file : C:\Users\javierg\.condarc
 populated config files :
          conda version : 24.7.1
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.12.6.final.0
                 solver : libmamba (default)
       virtual packages : __archspec=1=aarch64
                          __conda=24.7.1=0
                          __win=0=0
       base environment : C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3  (writable)
      conda av data dir : C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\etc\conda
  conda av metadata url : None
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/noarch
          package cache : C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\pkgs
                          C:\Users\javierg\.conda\pkgs
                          C:\Users\javierg\AppData\Local\conda\conda\pkgs
       envs directories : C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\envs
                          C:\Users\javierg\.conda\envs
                          C:\Users\javierg\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs
               platform : win-64
             user-agent : conda/24.7.1 requests/2.32.3 CPython/3.12.6 Windows/11 Windows/10.0.26100 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/24.7.0 libmambapy/1.5.9
          administrator : False
             netrc file : C:\Users\javierg/.netrc
           offline mode : False

Conda Config

Conda list

# packages in environment at C:\Users\javierg\miniforge3\envs\conda-build:
#
# Name                    Version                   Build  Channel
archspec                  0.2.3              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
attrs                     24.3.0             pyh71513ae_0    conda-forge
beautifulsoup4            4.12.3             pyha770c72_1    conda-forge
boltons                   24.0.0             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
brotli-python             1.1.0           py311hda3d55a_2    conda-forge
bzip2                     1.0.8                h2466b09_7    conda-forge
ca-certificates           2024.12.14           h56e8100_0    conda-forge
certifi                   2024.12.14         pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
cffi                      1.17.1          py311he736701_0    conda-forge
chardet                   5.2.0           py311h1ea47a8_2    conda-forge
charset-normalizer        3.4.1              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
click                     8.1.8              pyh7428d3b_0    conda-forge
colorama                  0.4.6              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
conda                     24.11.3         py311h1ea47a8_0    conda-forge
conda-build               25.1.1          py311h1ea47a8_1    conda-forge
conda-index               0.5.0              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
conda-libmamba-solver     24.11.1            pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
conda-package-handling    2.4.0              pyh7900ff3_2    conda-forge
conda-package-streaming   0.11.0             pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
cpp-expected              1.1.0                h91493d7_0    conda-forge
distro                    1.9.0              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
filelock                  3.16.1             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
fmt                       11.0.2               h7f575de_0    conda-forge
frozendict                2.4.6           py311he736701_0    conda-forge
h2                        4.1.0              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
hpack                     4.0.0              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
hyperframe                6.0.1              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
idna                      3.10               pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
importlib_resources       6.5.2              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
jinja2                    3.1.5              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
jsonpatch                 1.33               pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
jsonpointer               3.0.0           py311h1ea47a8_1    conda-forge
jsonschema                4.23.0             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
jsonschema-specifications 2024.10.1          pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
krb5                      1.21.3               hdf4eb48_0    conda-forge
libarchive                3.7.7                h979ed78_3    conda-forge
libcurl                   8.11.1               h88aaa65_0    conda-forge
libexpat                  2.6.4                he0c23c2_0    conda-forge
libffi                    3.4.2                h8ffe710_5    conda-forge
libiconv                  1.17                 hcfcfb64_2    conda-forge
liblief                   0.15.1               he0c23c2_0    conda-forge
liblzma                   5.6.3                h2466b09_1    conda-forge
libmamba                  2.0.5                hc493ae7_1    conda-forge
libmambapy                2.0.5           py311h1191274_1    conda-forge
libsolv                   0.7.30               hbb528cf_0    conda-forge
libsqlite                 3.47.2               h67fdade_0    conda-forge
libssh2                   1.11.1               he619c9f_0    conda-forge
libxml2                   2.13.5               he286e8c_1    conda-forge
libzlib                   1.3.1                h2466b09_2    conda-forge
lz4-c                     1.10.0               h2466b09_1    conda-forge
lzo                       2.10              hcfcfb64_1001    conda-forge
m2-conda-epoch            20230914               0_x86_64    conda-forge
m2-msys2-runtime          3.4.9.1              hd8ed1ab_4    conda-forge
m2-patch                  2.7.6.2              hd8ed1ab_4    conda-forge
markupsafe                3.0.2           py311h5082efb_1    conda-forge
menuinst                  2.2.0           py311hda3d55a_0    conda-forge
more-itertools            10.6.0             pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
nlohmann_json             3.11.3               he0c23c2_1    conda-forge
openssl                   3.4.0                ha4e3fda_1    conda-forge
packaging                 24.2               pyhd8ed1ab_2    conda-forge
pip                       24.3.1             pyh8b19718_2    conda-forge
pkginfo                   1.12.0             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
pkgutil-resolve-name      1.3.10             pyhd8ed1ab_2    conda-forge
platformdirs              4.3.6              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
pluggy                    1.5.0              pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
psutil                    6.1.1           py311he736701_0    conda-forge
py-lief                   0.15.1          py311hda3d55a_0    conda-forge
pybind11-abi              4                    hd8ed1ab_3    conda-forge
pycosat                   0.6.6           py311he736701_2    conda-forge
pycparser                 2.22               pyh29332c3_1    conda-forge
pysocks                   1.7.1              pyh09c184e_7    conda-forge
python                    3.11.11         h3f84c4b_1_cpython    conda-forge
python-libarchive-c       5.1             py311h1ea47a8_1    conda-forge
python_abi                3.11                    5_cp311    conda-forge
pytz                      2024.2             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
pyyaml                    6.0.2           py311he736701_1    conda-forge
referencing               0.36.1             pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
reproc                    14.2.5.post0         h2466b09_0    conda-forge
reproc-cpp                14.2.5.post0         he0c23c2_0    conda-forge
requests                  2.32.3             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
ripgrep                   14.1.1               ha073cba_0    conda-forge
rpds-py                   0.22.3          py311h533ab2d_0    conda-forge
ruamel.yaml               0.18.10         py311he736701_0    conda-forge
ruamel.yaml.clib          0.2.8           py311he736701_1    conda-forge
setuptools                75.8.0             pyhff2d567_0    conda-forge
simdjson                  3.11.6               hc790b64_0    conda-forge
soupsieve                 2.5                pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
spdlog                    1.15.0               h81cc0e1_0    conda-forge
tk                        8.6.13               h5226925_1    conda-forge
tqdm                      4.67.1             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
truststore                0.10.0             pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
typing_extensions         4.12.2             pyha770c72_1    conda-forge
tzdata                    2025a                h78e105d_0    conda-forge
ucrt                      10.0.22621.0         h57928b3_1    conda-forge
urllib3                   2.3.0              pyhd8ed1ab_0    conda-forge
vc                        14.3                ha32ba9b_23    conda-forge
vc14_runtime              14.42.34433         he29a5d6_23    conda-forge
vs2015_runtime            14.42.34433         hdffcdeb_23    conda-forge
wheel                     0.45.1             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
win_inet_pton             1.1.0              pyh7428d3b_8    conda-forge
yaml                      0.2.5                h8ffe710_2    conda-forge
yaml-cpp                  0.8.0                h63175ca_0    conda-forge
zipp                      3.21.0             pyhd8ed1ab_1    conda-forge
zstandard                 0.23.0          py311h53056dc_1    conda-forge
zstd                      1.5.6                h0ea2cb4_0    conda-forge

Additional Context

This is the recipe:

source:
  path: .

requirements:

  build:
    - python

  run:
    - python

about:
  home: https://github.com/javierggt@hello

This is the code

pyproject.toml

[project]
name = "hello"
dynamic = ["version"]
dependencies = []

[tool.setuptools.packages.find]
include = ["hello"]  # package names should match these glob patterns (["*"] by default)

[build-system]
requires = ["setuptools", "setuptools_scm"]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"

[tool.setuptools_scm]

[project.urls]
Homepage = "https://github.com/javierggt/hello"

[project.scripts]
hello = "hello.hello:main"

hello.py

def main():
    print("Hello!")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

[javierggt]

I repeated the process in the base environment, and got the same result. I did not change the description to reflect that, but I can if you prefer.