# Beets dont start for a while with error: can only concatenate list (not “\_NamespacePath”) to list

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [October 1, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531 "2020-10-01T17:32:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![veryducky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/dc4da7/32.png) [@veryducky](https://discourse.beets.io/u/veryducky)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/1 "2020-10-01T17:32:39Z")

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hello my beets won’t start. Does anybode know why? I tried to remove the config, but it didn’t helped.

I get the following terminal output:

> \>beet --version  
> Traceback (most recent call last):  
> File “/usr/bin/beet”, line 33, in   
> sys.exit(load\_entry\_point(‘beets==1.4.9’, ‘console\_scripts’, ‘beet’)())  
> File “/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/beets/ui/ **init**.py”, line 1266, in main  
> \_raw\_main(args)  
> File “/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/beets/ui/ **init**.py”, line 1249, in \_raw\_main  
> subcommands, plugins, lib = \_setup(options, lib)  
> File “/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/beets/ui/ **init**.py”, line 1135, in \_setup  
> plugins = \_load\_plugins(config)  
> File “/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/beets/ui/ **init**.py”, line 1114, in \_load\_plugins  
> beetsplug. **path** = paths + beetsplug. **path**  
> TypeError: can only concatenate list (not “\_NamespacePath”) to list

EDIT:  
I use Version 1.4.9-4 on Arch Linux with python 3.8.5-2.

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**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/2 "2020-10-02T00:36:36Z")

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Hi there! This is super weird, but it has cropped up seemingly at random for a few other users recently:

> <https://github.com/beetbox/beets/issues/3717>
>
> Problem
> Due to #3674, I've installed the latest source version with command pip install https://github.com/beetbox/beets/tarball/master under the FAQ guidance.
> but it seems that...

I’m not sure what’s causing it. But maybe cross-comparing with that thread will yield some clues?

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**Author:** ![samthursfield](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/samthursfield/32/246_2.png) [@samthursfield](https://discourse.beets.io/u/samthursfield)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:53am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/3 "2020-10-02T10:53:34Z")

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I triggered this recently by running `pip3 --devel .` in the Git repo to install Beets. Reinstalling without `--devel` fixed the issue.

Maybe it’s related. Do you have anything Beets-related in your personal Python libdir? (probably `~/.local/lib/python3.8`)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![veryducky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/dc4da7/32.png) [@veryducky](https://discourse.beets.io/u/veryducky)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/4 "2020-10-02T12:26:51Z")

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Thank to you two, I could fix it with your help. As **[Victrid](https://github.com/Victrid)** said in the last post in the issue and @samthursfield in this forum, the problem was my .local/lib/python3.8 path. I installed the beets-extrafiles plugin with the following command:

> pip3 install --user beets-extrafiles

That was recommended from the Tutorial on **[PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/beets-extrafiles/)**. So I removed it from my user installation and install it as root.

> sudo pip3 install beets-extrafiles

Now it works. Thank you all!

As I read that the other person with the problem has Arch Linux too, I wonder if this is Arch Linux related problem. Or is the issue known from other distros too?

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**Author:** ![samthursfield](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/samthursfield/32/246_2.png) [@samthursfield](https://discourse.beets.io/u/samthursfield)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/5 "2020-10-02T12:32:39Z")

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> [@veryducky](#):
>
> Or is the issue known from other distros too?

I experienced this on Fedora 33. It may be a recent issue with Python 3.8 / 3.9.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/beets-dont-start-for-a-while-with-error-can-only-concatenate-list-not-namespacepath-to-list/1531/6 "2020-10-05T12:54:58Z")

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While I’m still sort of stumped about the root cause, this should avoid the problem:

> <https://github.com/beetbox/beets/commit/bfb954877aa2e368a5a6fd1b47070adf7da812b6>