Error related to 'tflite_runtime.interpreter' when executing BirdNET-Analyzer on Windows server

[Joerg-Albrecht]

Describe the bug
I installed BirdNET-Analyzer on a Windows server and wanted to make a test run but ran into problems (see error message below). It seems to be related to the import of tflite_runtime.interpreter in the script model.py.

Any help regarding the solution to the problem would be great.

To Reproduce
I tried to start the birdNET-Analyzer.exe for windows as described in the Readme, using the following command:

C:\Users\AlbrechtJo\AppData\Local\Programs\BirdNET-Analyzer>BirdNET-Analyzer.exe --i example/ --o example/ --slist example/ --min_conf 0.5 --threads 4

I get the following error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "model.py", line 25, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tflite_runtime'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "analyze.py", line 17, in <module>
  File "PyInstaller\loader\pyimod02_importers.py", line 378, in exec_module
  File "model.py", line 27, in <module>
  File "PyInstaller\loader\pyimod02_importers.py", line 378, in exec_module
  File "tensorflow\__init__.py", line 45, in <module>
  File "PyInstaller\loader\pyimod02_importers.py", line 378, in exec_module
  File "tensorflow\python\tf2.py", line 21, in <module>
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing _pywrap_tf2: Eine DLL-Initialisierungsroutine ist fehlgeschlagen.
[PYI-12736:ERROR] Failed to execute script 'analyze' due to unhandled exception!

A similar error occurred when I tried to run BirdNET-Analyzer using the cloned github repository.

Expected behavior
I expected BirdNET to analyze the example files but I got the following error message.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows Server 2022 Datacenter

• Version 21H2

• Python version 3.12.1

Package                 Version
----------------------- ------------
absl-py                 2.1.0
astunparse              1.6.3
audioread               3.0.1
certifi                 2024.8.30
cffi                    1.17.1
charset-normalizer      3.3.2
contourpy               1.3.0
cycler                  0.12.1
decorator               5.1.1
flatbuffers             24.3.25
fonttools               4.53.1
gast                    0.6.0
google-pasta            0.2.0
grpcio                  1.66.1
h5py                    3.11.0
idna                    3.8
joblib                  1.4.2
keras                   3.5.0
kiwisolver              1.4.7
lazy_loader             0.4
libclang                18.1.1
librosa                 0.10.2.post1
llvmlite                0.43.0
Markdown                3.7
markdown-it-py          3.0.0
MarkupSafe              2.1.5
matplotlib              3.9.2
mdurl                   0.1.2
ml-dtypes               0.3.2
msgpack                 1.0.8
namex                   0.0.8
numba                   0.60.0
numpy                   1.26.4
opt-einsum              3.3.0
optree                  0.12.1
packaging               24.1
pillow                  10.4.0
pip                     24.2
platformdirs            4.2.2
pooch                   1.8.2
protobuf                4.25.4
pycparser               2.22
pydub                   0.25.1
Pygments                2.18.0
pyparsing               3.1.4
python-dateutil         2.9.0.post0
requests                2.32.3
resampy                 0.4.3
rich                    13.8.0
scikit-learn            1.5.1
scipy                   1.14.1
setuptools              74.1.2
six                     1.16.0
soundfile               0.12.1
soxr                    0.5.0.post1
tensorboard             2.17.1
tensorboard-data-server 0.7.2
tensorflow              2.17.0
tensorflow-intel        2.17.0
termcolor               2.4.0
tflite                  2.10.0
threadpoolctl           3.5.0
typing_extensions       4.12.2
urllib3                 2.2.2
watchdog                2.1.9
Werkzeug                3.0.4
wheel                   0.44.0
wrapt                   1.16.0

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

[max-mauermann]

Hi,
Could you try to install
librosa==0.9.2
and
tensorflow==2.15.0
as this is what we have in our requirements.txt and might already solve your issue.

[Joerg-Albrecht]

Thank you for the suggestion. In the first try I couldn't install tensorflow==2.15.0, because it is not supported by python 3.12, which runs on the windows machine.

Following your suggestion I tried it with python 3.11, which supports librosa==0.9.2 and tensorflow==2.15.0. However, I still encounter the error. Here is what I tried and the error message:

M:\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\BirdNET-Analyzer>py -3.11 analyze.py --i example/ --o example/ --slist example/ --min_conf 0.5 --threads 4
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "M:\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\BirdNET-Analyzer\model.py", line 25, in <module>
    import tflite_runtime.interpreter as tflite  # type: ignore
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tflite_runtime'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "M:\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\BirdNET-Analyzer\analyze.py", line 17, in <module>
    import model
  File "M:\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\BirdNET-Analyzer\model.py", line 27, in <module>
    from tensorflow import lite as tflite
  File "\\srvhlugfaswi001\AlbrechtJo\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\Python\Python311\site-packages\tensorflow\__init__.py", line 45, in <module>
    from tensorflow.python import tf2 as _tf2
  File "\\srvhlugfaswi001\AlbrechtJo\Telearbeit\RoamingProfileData\AppData\Python\Python311\site-packages\tensorflow\python\tf2.py", line 21, in <module>
    from tensorflow.python.platform import _pywrap_tf2
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing _pywrap_tf2: Eine DLL-Initialisierungsroutine ist fehlgeschlagen.

The problem seems to be the call to tflite_runtime.

[Josef-Haupt]

I'm not familiar mit the switch py -3.11.
Please type py --version to check your python version. Looks to me like it's still the same problem.

[Joerg-Albrecht]

I have both versions of python (3.11 and 3.12) installed. The command py -3.11 is a shorthand in pylauncher to run a specific version of python. Maybe I need to create a virtual environment.

[FuryBart]

@Joerg-Albrecht
It may be the same issue I am having. I have not been able to fix it yet.