St.session not initializing?

[dilln]

Summary

Hey everyone! I could be missing something simple but I am following the documentation on how to create a chat bot but everytime I try to initialize chat history I get this error:

AttributeError: st.session_state has no attribute “messages”. Did you forget to initialize it? More info: Add statefulness to apps - Streamlit Docs

Steps to reproduce

Code snippet:

# Initialize chat history
if "messages" not in st.session_state:
    st.session_state.messages = []

If applicable, please provide the steps we should take to reproduce the error or specified behavior.

Expected behavior:

web pg app to load

Actual behavior:

receiving error: AttributeError: st.session_state has no attribute “messages”. Did you forget to initialize it? More info: Add statefulness to apps - Streamlit Docs

Debug info

• Streamlit version: (1.27.2)
• Python version: (3.10.1)
• VS code
• OS version: Sonoma Ver 14
• Browser version:

Requirements file

only streamlit is required, using nothing else atm
Not sure what a requirements file is? Check out this doc and add a requirements file to your app.

Links

no repo yet, just playing around.

Additional information

If needed, add any other context about the problem here.

[Caroline]

Hey @dilln,

Is there any other code in the file you’re running or is it just that one line?

[dilln]

Hi Caroline!

I am trying to run the full code for the echo bot in the documentation here: Build conversational apps - Streamlit Docs

Ill paste the code here too:

import streamlit as st

st.title("Echo Bot")

# Initialize chat history
if "messages" not in st.session_state:
    st.session_state.messages = []

# Display chat messages from history on app rerun
for message in st.session_state.messages:
    with st.chat_message(message["role"]):
        st.markdown(message["content"])

# React to user input
if prompt := st.chat_input("What is up?"):
    # Display user message in chat message container
    st.chat_message("user").markdown(prompt)
    # Add user message to chat history
    st.session_state.messages.append({"role": "user", "content": prompt})

    response = f"Echo: {prompt}"
    # Display assistant response in chat message container
    with st.chat_message("assistant"):
        st.markdown(response)
    # Add assistant response to chat history
    st.session_state.messages.append({"role": "assistant", "content": response})

[Caroline]

What version of Streamlit and Python are you using?

[dilln]

@dilln

• Streamlit version: (1.27.2)
• Python version: (3.10.1)

• Streamlit version: (1.27.2)
• Python version: (3.10.1)

[Caroline]

Sorry, missed that in the original post! I ask because I’m having trouble reproducing the error locally. Let me try with those versions

[dilln]

Ya, I asked others and they said the same thing. It is a weird outcome!

[Caroline]

Yeah I switched to 1.27.2 and Python 3.10 and I’m still not seeing the error, weirdly. What happens if you switch to Python 3.11?

[dilln]

Still got the same error after switching to 3.11. Tried to run in debug too and nothing is popping up.

[Caroline]

That is so bizarre. Does it happen if you switch to a different Streamlit version too? I’m wondering if I can reproduce if I update my computer to Sonoma

[andreped]

Hello, @dilln!

Did you forget to read the full error message, maybe? In my case, I accidentally tried to run the streamline app with python app.py, but you need to use streamline run app.py.

You should be promoted about this, if you accidentally did the same. In my case it said:

2023-10-24 09:00:23.842 Session state does not function when running a script without `streamlit run`
(...)
AttributeError: st.session_state has no attribute "messages". Did you forget to initialize it? More info: https://docs.streamlit.io/library/advanced-features/session-state#initialization

The confusion was that the streamlin run “warning” came at the very top of the log, whereas the final error came much later, making a bit challenging to debug.

[Aditya_Kumar]

@dilln - Could you please try run with streamlit cli. For example - **streamlit run main.py**. I got the same error while I was trying to run app with python main.py command.