Jupyter Server and Notebook extensions not enabled

[SylvainCorlay]

conda packages holding server or notebook extensions currently execute a shell command as part of their post-link script to register the extension with Jupyter.

This is the case e.g. for jupyterlab or bqplot.

The logs of the binder build indicate that these scripts are successfully run during the installation, however, when running the binder, the extension is not activated.

• Are the conda packages installed in a different environment from the one that is run eventually?
• This actually used to work, but stopped a short while ago. I presume a change in binder caused it.

[minrk]

The packages are installed in the kernel env, which is separate from the server env, I think. I don't believe you are given access to the server env.

[SylvainCorlay]

Although when I run the extension enabling command from the notebook, then it works. Are there really two environments?

[minrk]

I thought so. You should be able to tell with sys.executable in a kernel, and ps ax | grep notebook.

[SylvainCorlay]

In the bqplot binder, I see a lot of kernel specs enabled, some which have bqplot, other that don't.

None seem to have the extension enabled.

[SylvainCorlay]

This seems to be due to anaconda's _nb_ext_conf-0.3.0 which overrides the notebook configuration.

[SylvainCorlay]

@minrk FYI we can get around it by disabling the default channel of anaconda.