BUG: (Python 3.11) Compiler cl can not compile programs

Describe your issue.

Hello ! While trying to install scipy on Python 3.11rc1 (Windows 11), I got the error “Compiler cl can not compile programs”.

I searched about the error Compiler cl can not compile programs but I didn’t find anything to fix this problem, some things about Visual Studio but I already have VS 2019… My main concern is that I’m updating my own open-source projects to be compatible with Python 3.11 (candidate version in 1 month), and I’m afraid that scipy 1.9.1 doesn’t work out of the box on Windows.

In addition, I confirm having installed meson using pip, and it’s in PATH. I thought at first that it was a meson issue so I opened an issue in meson (https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/10795), but it appears I’m not the only one having issues with scipy 1.9.1 : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73628794/unable-to-install-scipy-with-mkl-using-meson.

Also tried to manually build it, but after having installed pythran, gfortran, cython, pkg-config, cmake and tried to install openblas, I’m having a scipy\scipy\meson.build:141:0: ERROR: Dependency "OpenBLAS" not found, tried pkgconfig and cmake error. But that’s not the subject of this issue.

Reproducing Code Example

py -m pip install scipy --upgrade

Error message

Collecting scipy
  Using cached scipy-1.9.1.tar.gz (42.0 MB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [47 lines of output]
      The Meson build system
      Version: 0.62.2
      Source dir: C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e
      Build dir: C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\.mesonpy-x7d63hr0\build
      Build type: native build
      Project name: SciPy
      Project version: 1.9.1
      Activating VS 16.11.18

      ..\..\meson.build:1:0: ERROR: Compiler cl can not compile programs.

      A full log can be found at C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\.mesonpy-x7d63hr0\build\meson-logs\meson-log.txt
      + meson setup --native-file=C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\.mesonpy-native-file.ini -Ddebug=false -Doptimization=2 --prefix=C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311 C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-9tovb2ma\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\.mesonpy-x7d63hr0\build
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 363, in <module>
          main()
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 345, in main
          json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 130, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          return hook(config_settings)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 923, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          with _project(config_settings) as project:
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\contextlib.py", line 137, in __enter__
          return next(self.gen)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 902, in _project
          with Project.with_temp_working_dir(
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\contextlib.py", line 137, in __enter__
          return next(self.gen)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 547, in with_temp_working_dir
          yield cls(source_dir, tmpdir, build_dir)
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 463, in __init__
          self._configure(reconfigure=bool(build_dir) and not native_file_mismatch)
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 494, in _configure
          self._meson(
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 477, in _meson
          return self._proc('meson', *args)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-wder1mlf\overlay\Lib\site-packages\mesonpy\__init__.py", line 472, in _proc
          subprocess.check_call(list(args))
        File "C:\Users\thher\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\subprocess.py", line 413, in check_call
          raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
      subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['meson', 'setup', '--native-file=C:\\Users\\thher\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-9tovb2ma\\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\\.mesonpy-native-file.ini', '-Ddebug=false', '-Doptimization=2', '--prefix=C:\\Users\\thher\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python311', 'C:\\Users\\thher\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-9tovb2ma\\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e', 'C:\\Users\\thher\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-9tovb2ma\\scipy_828fda3b17134154918e54876239f05e\\.mesonpy-x7d63hr0\\build']' returned non-zero exit status 1.
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> See above for output.

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

(No more interesting details are present in the pip log file.)

SciPy/NumPy/Python version information

1.23.2 sys.version_info(major=3, minor=11, micro=0, releaselevel=‘candidate’, serial=1) (scipy not installed)

[rgommers]

Well, we still want to make sure that MSVC + MKL works. I think I already have the fixes needed for that in gh-16957. I’ll separate those out and get them merged, so you can try. The rest of that PR is adding CI so we’re sure it is working; fiddling with download commands to get MKL installed is the time-consuming part there.

[andyfaff]

You’ll have issues building with Windows at the moment with meson at the moment if you don’t compile with mingw-w64/gfortran. We’re currently looking into building SciPy with meson on windows at the moment with compilers other than mingw-w64, but that’s a work in progress. In addition those artefacts will get uploaded as nightly wheels, but we haven’t activated that just yet because the wheel builder script is still relatively new.