AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'

[aws-taylor]

When attempting to run the Keras Resnet50 tutorial, I received the following error:

import sys
!{sys.executable} aws-neuron-sdk/src/examples/tensorflow/keras_resnet50/gen_resnet50_keras.py

Output:

WARNING:tensorflow:From /home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/ops/resource_variable_ops.py:1630: calling BaseResourceVariable.__init__ (from tensorflow.python.ops.resource_variable_ops) with constraint is deprecated and will be removed in a future version.
Instructions for updating:
If using Keras pass *_constraint arguments to layers.
Downloading data from https://github.com/keras-team/keras-applications/releases/download/resnet/resnet50_weights_tf_dim_ordering_tf_kernels.h5
102973440/102967424 [==============================] - 5s 0us/step
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "aws-neuron-sdk/src/examples/tensorflow/keras_resnet50/gen_resnet50_keras.py", line 35, in <module>
    model = ResNet50(weights='imagenet')
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/keras/applications/__init__.py", line 49, in wrapper
    return base_fun(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/keras/applications/resnet.py", line 33, in ResNet50
    return resnet.ResNet50(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/keras_applications/resnet_common.py", line 435, in ResNet50
    **kwargs)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/keras_applications/resnet_common.py", line 411, in ResNet
    model.load_weights(weights_path)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/keras/engine/training.py", line 182, in load_weights
    return super(Model, self).load_weights(filepath, by_name)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/keras/engine/network.py", line 1373, in load_weights
    saving.load_weights_from_hdf5_group(f, self.layers)
  File "/home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tensorflow_core/python/keras/saving/hdf5_format.py", line 645, in load_weights_from_hdf5_group
    original_keras_version = f.attrs['keras_version'].decode('utf8')
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'

The issue appears to be related to the h5py library when using the following version:

import sys
!{sys.executable} -m pip show h5py

Output:

Name: h5py
Version: 3.1.0
Summary: Read and write HDF5 files from Python
Home-page: http://www.h5py.org
Author: Andrew Collette
Author-email: andrew.collette@gmail.com
License: BSD
Location: /home/ec2-user/anaconda3/envs/python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages
Requires: cached-property, numpy
Required-by: Keras-Applications

If I downgrade to 2.9.0, things seem to work fine.

import sys
!{sys.executable} -m pip install h5py==2.9.0

I also came across this issue that may be related - tensorflow/tensorflow#44467

[aws-joshim]

Please refer to the release note @ https://awsdocs-neuron.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/release-notes/tensorflow-neuron/tensorflow-neuron.html, this issue can be addressed by downgrade h5py by pip install ‘h5py<3’.

[aws-joshim]

Closing since this is fixed with the h5py<3