[python-package] On Windows, lightgbm-4.6.0-cpu_py_1 from conda-forge Training Fails with Boost Filesystem Path Encoding Error

[sdjafkhk]

Description

During LightGBM model training, an exception occurs when creating cache directories, caused by invalid path syntax with non-UTF8 characters.
Error Message:boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. [system:123]: "C:\Users\l\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0\x91\0I0???"
Interpreted Error Context:
The original GBK-encoded error message \xce\xc4\xbc\xfe\xc3\xfb\xa1\xa2\xc4\xbf\xc2\xbc\xc3\xfb\xbb\xf2\xbe\xed\xb1\xea\xd3\xef\xb7\xa8\xb2\xbb\xd5\xfd\xc8\xb7\xa1\xa3 translates to:
"The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect."

Reproducible example

import lightgbm as lgb
params = {
'objective': 'binary',
'num_iterations': 100,
'verbose': 1
}

Sample data

import numpy as np
X = np.random.rand(1000, 10)
y = np.random.randint(2, size=1000)
train_data = lgb.Dataset(X, label=y)

Trigger error

lgb.train(params, train_data) # Fails during cache directory creation

Expected Behavior
LightGBM should automatically create cache directories with valid pathnames and complete training successfully.

Environment info

OS: Windows 11

LightGBM Version: lightgbm-4.6.0-cpu_py_1 from conda-forge

Python Version: 3.12.9

LightGBM version or commit hash:

Command(s) you used to install LightGBM
conda install lightgbm

Additional Comments

when pip install lightgbm，then it works very good

[jameslamb]

Thanks for using LightGBM and for reporting this.

I'm very confused to see anything involving Boost here, given that you did not pass "device": "gpu" in params. Are you sure the reproducible example you've provided produces this error?

Could you run with "verbosity": 1 in params and share ALL of the logs here?

[sdjafkhk]

Sorry, I have uninstalled the lightgbm installed by conda, and then installed lightgbm through pip, and all the problems are normal. When I used lightgbm installed through conda, I saw that files with strange names were created in the folder C:\Users\l\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute. When I switched to the lightgbm installed by pip, all the folder names were normal.
My parameter settings are like this params = {
'boosting_type': 'gbdt',
'objective': 'multiclass',
'num_class': 10,
'metric': {'multi_logloss'},
'feature_fraction': 1.0,
'lambda_l1': 92,
'lambda_l2': 33,
'min_gain_to_split': 10,
'learning_rate': 0.20,
'bagging_fraction': 0.8,
'bagging_freq': 2,
'min_data_in_leaf': 800,
'max_depth': 7,
'num_leaves': 40,
"bagging_seed": 2,
"random_state": 2,
'nthread': 8,
'verbose': 1,
'device': 'gpu',
'gpu_use_dp':True,
'max_bins':63
}

[jameslamb]

Can you please share the following?

• output of conda info
• exact command you ran to install lightgbm with conda

I can try to reproduce this issue with surprising files being created by the conda package on Windows. What you've reported is very unexpected.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically closed because it has been awaiting a response for too long.
When you have time to to work with the maintainers to resolve this issue, please post a new comment and it will be re-opened. If the issue has been locked for editing by the time you return to it, please open a new issue and reference this one.
Thank you for taking the time to improve LightGBM!

[HAIHANTYZ]

I'm also encountering the same problem.

[LightGBM] [Info] This is the GPU trainer!!
[LightGBM] [Info] Total Bins 32614
[LightGBM] [Info] Number of data points in the train set: 373954, number of used features: 158
[LightGBM] [Info] Using GPU Device: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
[LightGBM] [Info] Compiling OpenCL Kernel with 256 bins...
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: 文件名、目录名或卷标语法不正确。 [system:123]: "C:\Users\haiha\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0骪0G0????v00?0? 020 0W0????9", "C:\Users\haiha\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0骪0G0????v00?0? 020 0W0????9"
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::cException ignored on calling ctypes callback functionreate_directories: 文件名、目录名或卷标: 语法不正确。 [system:123]: "C:\Users\haiha\AppData\Roam<function _log_callback at 0x000002E817A97B00>ing\boost_compute\0醆0??s0??&0<0?~0
?90Traceback (most recent call last):
?/0  File "d:\Users\haiha\anaconda3\envs\qlib\Lib\site-packages\lightgbm\basic.py", line 289, in _log_callback
#0F0?0?I", "C:\Users\haiha\AppData\Roaming\boost    _log_native(str(msg.decode("utf-8")))_

[jameslamb]

@HAIHANTYZ if you want help, we need you to provide the same information I asked for from the previous report:

#6881 (comment)

It's very unlikely that we'll be able to help you from an error message alone.

---

I've also slightly re-formatting your post... please also see https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/getting-started-with-writing-and-formatting-on-github/basic-writing-and-formatting-syntax for some advice on formatting markdown here on GitHub.

[seicatsu]

Can you please share the following?

• output of conda info
• exact command you ran to install lightgbm with conda

I can try to reproduce this issue with surprising files being created by the conda package on Windows. What you've reported is very unexpected.

Hi I encounter same problem when I try to use lightgbm on gpu, thanks for your help inadvance

The problem conda log:
"Failed to read file: C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Local\Temp\dep-fc9c41.d
1 warning generated.
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0\0�0F0
0q0�00�0�00�0\00-0}0�0i00 0�", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0"
1 warning generated.
1 warning generated.
Failed to read file: C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Local\Temp\dep-714835.d
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\00r0p0.0�0�0�0�070�0�0�0W0�0�0z0�050", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\00r0p0.0�0�0�0�070�0�0�0W0�0�0z0�050"[LightGBM] [Warning]
boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0�0K0)0�0�0�0 0H0�070�0B0�0�0�0�0x0�0P", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0�0K0)0�0�0�0 0H0�070�0B0�0�0�0�0x0�0P"
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0�0�0�0�0�00�0<0�0$0C0�0k0M0�0�0�0�0", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0�0�0�0�0�00�0<0�0$0C0�0k0M0�0�0�0�0"
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0␦\0�0F0B0�0�0�0e0�0�0^0�0�0.0.0�0�0n04", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0␦"
1 warning generated.
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\00 0�0+0�0�0�00�0S0�0u0�0�0)0�0@0�", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\00 0�0+0�0�0�00�0S0�0u0�0�0)0�0@0�"[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0\0�000/0�0�0y0O0[070a0�0�00�0�0R0'", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0"
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0&0�0\0y0�0�0�00<0}0i00�0050U0y00b", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0&0�0\0y0�0�0�00<0}0i00�0050U0y00b"
[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is inco0�00h0�0�0"0�0�0?0�0�", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0�\0�0�0�0�000�0

[LightGBM] [Warning] boost::filesystem::create_directories: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect [system:123]: "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0#\0_00�0�0�0�0�0�0�0�010�0�0�00r0�0
0", "C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Roaming\boost_compute\0#\0_00�0�0�0�0�0�0�0�010�0�0�00r0�0
0""

Conda info:

" active environment : base
active env location : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3
shell level : 1
user config file : C:\Users\Goktu.condarc
populated config files : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3.condarc
C:\Users\Goktu.condarc
conda version : 24.11.3
conda-build version : 24.9.0
python version : 3.12.3.final.0
solver : libmamba (default)
virtual packages : __archspec=1=skylake
__conda=24.11.3=0
__cuda=13.0=0
__win=0=0
base environment : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3 (writable)
conda av data dir : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3\etc\conda
conda av metadata url : None
channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/win-64
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/win-64
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/win-64
https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/noarch
package cache : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3\pkgs
C:\Users\Goktu.conda\pkgs
C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Local\conda\conda\pkgs
envs directories : C:\Users\Goktu\anaconda3\envs
C:\Users\Goktu.conda\envs
C:\Users\Goktu\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs
platform : win-64
user-agent : conda/24.11.3 requests/2.32.3 CPython/3.12.3 Windows/11 Windows/10.0.26100 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/24.9.0 libmambapy/1.5.8 aau/0.4.4 c/CNhYqbMCjfELdTuNCm6Udg s/R2T8Xg3P_DhYsuzuvjE0kw e/slg2Vkt7QLxK3OLNm1oT1w
administrator : False
netrc file : None
offline mode : False"

And finally the command that i used to install lightgbm:
conda install -c conda-forge lightgbm