How to Fix ImportError: Trainer with PyTorch Needs Accelerate

While working with Transformers in a Google Colab environment, I always encounter an ImportError related to the accelerate library.

ImportError: Using the Trainer with PyTorch requires accelerate>=0.21.0: Please run pip install transformers[torch] or pip install accelerate -U

Error message is self-explanatory. This error message arises because the Trainer class from the Transformers library requires accelerate to be installed and at a specific version (at least 0.21.0) when using PyTorch for training.

Fix : Install latest version of transformers and accelerate

Understanding why it keep coming

• Transformers required environment to be cuda enabled as per my understanding. accelerate helps with tasks like distributed training, which can utilize multiple GPUs effectively. It aids in faster processing.

While troubleshooting , I figured following notes might be useful

• Make sure installed transformers and accelerate library is latest and compatible

• Make sure you are running your code on GPU. Sometimes, your notebook switch to CPU setting.

• Disconnect current runtime and re-run the notebook

I hope it help you in your error troubleshooting in google colab. I would love to hear how you set up your notebook environments to avoid getting this error every time.