Fix: Tensorflow 1 Is Unsupported In Colab 2023

The Error “Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab”, is an error that is invoked when you are working on python and are trying to use tensorflow for your nlp projects.

The error is usually seen when you are using google colab notebooks for your project.

Given below is the snippet of the error you might get:

Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab.

Your notebook should be updated to use Tensorflow 2.
See the guide at https://www.tensorflow.org/guide/migrate#migrate-from-tensorflow-1x-to-tensorflow-2.

The error “Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab.” is seen because the code you are using is based on Tensorflow version 1 and as mentioned into error itself, Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab now.

As per Google announcement on 11 August 2022, Colab removed support for TensorFlow 1 in their latest release.

Google 2022/8/11 announcement states that ‘Removed support for TensorFlow 1’.

*Google Announcement: Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab*

You need to be aware that Colab just stopped supporting Tensor flow version 1.

However if required, you may still manually install it. Simply uninstall the previous Tensor flow v2 installation and install the earlier version instead.

The issue suggests that the code you intend to use is built on Tensorflow version 1. You should be aware that Tf1 support was recently discontinued by Colab.

To fix the error, “Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab.”, uninstall the Tensor Flow version 2 and install the earlier version Tensor Flow version 1 and ‘ValueError: Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab’ would be fixed.

To fix the issue you should be aware that Tf1 support was recently discontinued by Colab.

However, you can still install it by yourself. Replace the current Tf2 installation with the old one by simply removing the current one.

You can do so by using the below mentioned command:

!pip uninstall tensorflow
!pip install tensorflow-gpu==1.15

You might be prompted to restart the runtime in order for the modification to take effect, but this usually suffices.

If the problems are due to the version of Cuda, you could try to reinstall both Cuda and libcudnn by using the commands mentioned below:

apt install --allow-change-held-packages libcudnn7=7.4.1.5-1+cuda10.0

This should help you to fix the issue, “Tensorflow 1 is unsupported in Colab.”