Spyder cannot start in Wayland mode on Ubuntu 24.04 when using Conda packages

[parrenin]

Problem Description

With a fresh install of Ubuntu and Anaconda, I cannot use Wayland with Spyder.
When launching:
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland spyder
I get:
Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in ""
Even if I set the QT plugin path:
QT_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/plugins/ QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland spyder
I get:
Could not load the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in "" even though it was found.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Install Anaconda on Ubuntu 24.04
2. Try to launch spyder with Wayland
3. => it does not work

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

We should be able to use Spyder with Wayland support.

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.5.1
• Python version: 3.12
• Qt version: 5.15
• PyQt version: 5.15
• Operating System name/version: Ubuntu 24.04

[ccordoba12]

Hey @parrenin, thanks for reporting. I think Anaconda packages don't come with Wayland, so that's why you can't use Spyder with them.

However, you can use Conda-forge packages (a set of community-maintained packages), which include Wayland support for Qt. For that, please open a terminal and run the following commands:

conda create -n spyder-env -c conda-forge spyder python=3.12 qt-wayland
conda activate spyder-env
spyder

Let us know if it works for you.

[parrenin]

Thanks @ccordoba12, it works with conda-forge!
This is especially useful when using fractional scaling on Linux.
Two small remarks:

1. I still have to use QT_QPA_PLATFORME=wayland, so it seems wayland is still not default
2. The pointer has a different shape compared to the standard Gnome pointer.

[ccordoba12]

I still have to use QT_QPA_PLATFORME=wayland, so it seems wayland is still not default

I understand that's a serious limitation, but we'll try to address it before the Spyder 6 release.

The pointer has a different shape compared to the standard Gnome pointer.

You can also install the qt-gtk-platformtheme package to see if it helps (but I'm not sure about that):

conda activate spyder-env
conda install -c conda-forge qt-gtk-platformtheme

[parrenin]

I understand that's a serious limitation, but we'll try to address it before the Spyder 6 release.

Well, that is not a serious limitation once you have figured it out.

You can also install the qt-gtk-platformtheme package to see if it helps (but I'm not sure about that):

I did but it did not help.
BTW, not only is the pointer different, but it is also twice too big (I am using a 200% scaling in Gnome)

[parrenin]

So it is like the pointer is scaled at 400% instead of at 200%.

[ccordoba12]

Sorry, I have no idea how to fix that.

[parrenin]

Just for the record, the spyder .deb package (5.5.1) provided by Ubuntu 24.04 does use wayland by default.
So I am using this one for now.

[ingo-m]

@parrenin thanks for that.

I also ended up installing the spyder 5 deb packages with sudo apt-get install spyder on Ubuntu 24 with wayland. The other solutions discussed above did not work for me (also not after including qt-wayland from conda).