Did colab suspend tensorflow 1.x? - google-colaboratory

Question

I tried
%tensorflow_version 1.15
I used this code a couple days ago, but it doesn't work anymore since today.
The outcomes are
ValueError Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-24c52e77c597> in <module>()
----> 1 get_ipython().magic('tensorflow_version 1.15')
2 frames
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py in magic(self, arg_s)
2158 magic_name, _, magic_arg_s = arg_s.partition(' ')
2159 magic_name = magic_name.lstrip(prefilter.ESC_MAGIC)
-> 2160 return self.run_line_magic(magic_name, magic_arg_s)
2161
2162 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py in run_line_magic(self, magic_name, line)
2079 kwargs['local_ns'] = sys._getframe(stack_depth).f_locals
2080 with self.builtin_trap:
-> 2081 result = fn(*args,**kwargs)
2082 return result
2083
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/google/colab/_tensorflow_magics.py in _tensorflow_version(line)
39
40 Your notebook should be updated to use Tensorflow 2.
---> 41 See the guide at https://www.tensorflow.org/guide/migrate#migrate-from-tensorflow-1x-to-tensorflow-2."""
42 ))
43
ValueError: Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab.
Your notebook should be updated to use Tensorflow 2.
See the guide at https://www.tensorflow.org/guide/migrate#migrate-from-tensorflow-1x-to-tensorflow-2.
Is there any method I can try to fix it or does it means that colab will not support tensorflow 1.x anymore?

Answer 1

Google Colab removed support for Tensorflow 1, and it is not possible to use %tensorflow_version 1.x magic anymore. You must remove this instruction from your code if you have it.
Also the default python version as I update this answer is python 3.8 which is not compatible with tensorflow 1.x.
To make everything work you first have to downgrade python. Python 3.6 should work. As suggested by #s-abbaasi here's a guide on how to do so:
%%bash
MINICONDA_INSTALLER_SCRIPT=Miniconda3-4.5.4-Linux-x86_64.sh
MINICONDA_PREFIX=/usr/local
wget https://repo.continuum.io/miniconda/$MINICONDA_INSTALLER_SCRIPT
chmod +x $MINICONDA_INSTALLER_SCRIPT
./$MINICONDA_INSTALLER_SCRIPT -b -f -p $MINICONDA_PREFIX
Then add to path:
import sys
_ = (sys.path.append("/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages"))
At this point you can manually uninstall and re-install tensorflow through pip:
!pip uninstall tensorflow
!pip install tensorflow-gpu==1.15
Doing just so I sometimes encounter some errors due to the Cuda version. If this happens to you, you can execute the following:
!apt install --allow-change-held-packages libcudnn7=7.4.1.5-1+cuda10.0
The most appropriate version of cuda and libcudnn to use with the tensorflow version you want to install can be found here.
The versions available of libcudnn can be found with the following command:
!apt list -a libcudnn7
This will list all libcudnn7 versions available.

Answer 2

I was having the same problems while trying to use StyleGAN2-ADA, which only supports TensorFlow 1.
I found out that unfortunately Google Colab removed support for TensorFlow 1 in their latest release of 2022/8/11.
'Removed support for TensorFlow 1'
You can find more information in their notebook Release-Notes: https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/relnotes.ipynb