Fixing Phoenix and SQLAlchemy Compatibility Issues in Airflow DAG

·May 21, 2025 11:01 AM

I am using phoenix in my airflow dag to automate spans evaluations. I'm getting below error in airflow -

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/phoenix/db/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from .engines import get_printable_db_url
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/phoenix/db/engines.py", line 16, in <module>
    from sqlalchemy import URL, StaticPool, event, make_url
ImportError: cannot import name 'URL' from 'sqlalchemy' (/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/sqlalchemy/__init__.py)

These are the versions that are installed in my python env -

arize-phoenix == 9.0.1
airflow == 2.10.0
sqlalchemy == 2.0.40

Can someone help how to fix this? OR Help me identify which sqlalchemy version does phoenix package requires, so that I can try installing the same? Thanks in advance.

5 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

RunLLM
APP
·
Phoenix requires SQLAlchemy version > =2.0.4 and <3, as specified in its dependencies. The error occurs because the `URL` import is only available in SQLAlchemy 2.x, but some Airflow versions may pin or override SQLAlchemy to incompatible versions. You are using SQLAlchemy 2.0.40, which should be compatible, so the issue may be due to conflicting Airflow dependencies or an environment mismatch (<https://github.com/Arize-ai/phoenix/blob/main/pyproject.toml|pyproject.toml>). To resolve, ensure that both Phoenix and Airflow are installed in a clean environment with SQLAlchemy > =2.0.4,<3, and that no other package is downgrading SQLAlchemy. If Airflow pins a different version, consider using a virtual environment or Docker to isolate dependencies (<https://github.com/Arize-ai/phoenix/blob/main/pyproject.toml|pyproject.toml>). Would you like more detail on how to check for dependency conflicts or set up an isolated environment? Sources: - <https://github.com/Arize-ai/phoenix/blob/main/pyproject.toml|pyproject.toml>
💡 Hint: Mention RunLLM in the thread for followups.
RunLLM
APP
·
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Mikyo
·
hey Sidhant S. - in general if you are just trying to emit spans from something like airflow, I don't recommend installing all of phoenix. You have smaller sub-packages you should use. E.g.
arize-phoenix-otel - has all the opentelemetry packages you need to export spans
arize-phoenix-client gives you all the annotation apis
Mikyo
·
There's no need for arize-phoenix as it contains the server and DB code. Sorry if this is confusing. Will work with John G. to make this more clear
Sidhant S.
·
Hey Mikyo It was a cache issue in our airflow environment. This error got resolved once we restarted the service. Thanks for the help!
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Fixing Phoenix and SQLAlchemy Compatibility Issues in Airflow DAG | Arize AI Community