OSError: [E050] Can't find model 'en_core_web_sm'. It doesn't seem to be a shortcut link, a Python package or a valid path to a data directory.

[dldisha]

I have installed spacy and downloaded en_core_web_sm with:

pip3 install spacy
python3 -m spacy download en_core_web_sm

When I try to run the en_core_web_sm module in Python IDE with:

import spacy
nlp = spacy.load("en_core_web_sm")

it shows an error message:

 File "/home/disha/Desktop/project/python/parser/venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages/spacy/__init__.py", line 30, in load
    return util.load_model(name, **overrides)
  File "/home/disha/Desktop/project/python/parser/venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages/spacy/util.py", line 169, in load_model
    raise IOError(Errors.E050.format(name=name))
OSError: [E050] Can't find model 'en'. It doesn't seem to be a shortcut link, a Python package or a valid path to a data directory.

I have tried every possible solution which was suggested on GitHub and Stack Overflow but nothing worked

• Operating System: Ubuntu
• Python Version Used: 3.6
• spaCy Version Used: 2.2.3

Can somebody help me fix this issue? Thanks in advance!

[adrianeboyd]

Hi, check that the python3 command you are using to install spacy and the model is the same python command as used within the IDE. I can't tell for sure, but I would guess that python3 is the system python from /usr/bin/python3 and the IDE is using python in your venv, maybe: /home/disha/Desktop/project/python/parser/venv/bin/python.

Also, the error message makes it look like you were trying to run spacy.load('en') instead of spacy.load('en_core_web_sm'). If you run spacy download en_core_web_sm, the shortcut en isn't created, so you need to use spacy.load('en_core_web_sm').

You can add the shortcut with spacy link en_core_web_sm en or have it created along with the download with spacy download en, but honestly it's a good idea to use the full name to avoid confusion.

[dldisha]

Yeah, this solved my issue. Python3 and IDE were using different versions and directories. Therefore, it wasn't able to load the model.

To solve this, I copied en_core_web_sm model directories in the project directory itself i.e in:
/parser/venv/lib/python3.6/site-packages

Thanks :)

[adrianeboyd]

Glad it's working! It would be better to install with pip within the venv than to copy the directory:

source /home/disha/Desktop/project/python/parser/venv/bin/activate
pip install -U spacy
spacy download en_core_web_sm

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