Troubleshooting Linting

Troubleshooting Linting

1. Unable to import (pylint)

• Scenario: You have a module installed, however the linter in the IDE is complaining about; not being able to import the module, hence error messages such as the following are displayed as linter errors:

.. unable to import 'xxx' .. 

• Cause: The Python extension is most likely using the wrong version of Pylint.

Solution: (configure workspace settings to point to fully qualified python executable):

1. Open the workspace settings (settings.json)
2. Identify the fully qualified path to the python executable (this could even be a virtual environment)
3. Ensure Pylint is installed for the above python environment
4. Configure the setting "pythonPath" to point to (previously identified) the fully qualified python executable.

"python.pythonPath": "/users/xxx/bin/python"

2. Linting with xxx failed. ...

Listing could fail due to a number of reasons. Please check each of the following.

Cause: The path to the python executable is incorrect
Solution: Configure the path to the python executable in the settings.json

Cause: The linter has not been installed in the Python environment being used
Solution: Identify the Python environment (executable) configured in settings.json. Next install the linter(s) against this Python environment (use the corresponding Pip).

Cause: The Path to the linter is incorrect
Solution: If you have provided a custom path to the linter in settings.json, then ensure this file path exist.

Cause: Custom arguments have been configured in the corresponding 'path' setting
Solution: Custom linter arguments have been defined incorrectly in the **python.linting.xxxPath" setting as follows:

"python.linting.pylintPath": "pylint --load-plugins pylint_django"

Defining command line arguments in this manner is not supported, instead it will have to be defined as follows:

"python.linting.pylintArgs": ["--load-plugins", "pylint_django"]

For further information on configuring Linters can be found here.