Frequently Asked Questions / Troubleshooting

Concepts

Why does each solution get its own environment?

Album creates a dedicated micromamba environment for every installed solution so that routines with conflicting dependencies (different Python, CUDA, PyTorch, R, … versions) can coexist on the same machine. The host Album environment only runs the lightweight controller; your solution runs in a clean, isolated environment that exactly matches its specification. This is the same property that lets a single workflow combine several segmentation backends with mutually incompatible stacks (see case-studies, scenario B).

How is Album different from a package manager / workflow engine / container?

Album is not a replacement for any of them — it composes with them:

Package managers (conda, pip) distribute libraries; Album distributes executable routines, including their environment, lifecycle hooks (install / run / test), arguments, and citation metadata.
Workflow engines (Snakemake, Nextflow, Galaxy) orchestrate multi-step analyses; Album makes individual steps easier to package, execute, and validate independently. An Album solution can be reused as a workflow step.
Containers are great for long-term portability of mature artifacts. Album solutions are lighter to build and iterate on during development; the album-docker plugin lets you containerize a solution when it has stabilised.

Can I use Album with an LLM agent?

Yes, via Album MCP. The agent is constrained to the solutions actually present in your catalogs — it discovers, installs, and runs them through typed tool calls instead of free-form shell commands.

Album installation

The installation wizard appears to not have started (Windows)

The wizard runs in the background and may take several minutes on some systems to download and install all components.

The installation wizard asks for administrator permissions (Windows)

The wizard runs the micromamba shell init call to register the Album micromamba installation in your PowerShell profile so that Album is available from the command line. This requires editing the profile of the current user, which Windows may interpret as needing elevated privileges.

You can deny the request. Album will still work through the graphical user interface, but the micromamba and album commands will not be available in PowerShell / cmd.exe because the shell was not initialised.

The installation wizard fails due to network issues (all OS)

The wizard needs network access to download micromamba and to install packages from conda-forge. Some environments have firewall or proxy settings that block these downloads. Please adjust your network / proxy settings or ask your IT department for guidance.

MacOS Gatekeeper warning (“Apple can’t check app for malicious software”)

Open Finder, right-click (or Control-click) the installer, choose Open from the context menu, and confirm that you want to run the application. This only needs to be done once.

Linux: “Permission denied” when running the installer

The downloaded file must be made executable first:

chmod +x ./album_installer

How do I uninstall Album?

Delete the .album directory in your home directory:

rm -rf ~/.album

This removes micromamba, all Album environments, and all installed solutions.

`micromamba` command not found after manual installation

If you installed micromamba manually, make sure shell initialisation has been run:

micromamba shell init -s bash -p ~/micromamba

Replace bash with your shell (zsh, fish, powershell) and restart your terminal. See the micromamba documentation for details.

Individual Album solution installation

Simultaneous installation of multiple solutions fails (all OS)

Installing solutions in parallel is not currently supported. Please install solutions consecutively.

Solution installation fails due to missing `git` command (all OS)

Album requires git for catalog management and some solution installations. If you installed Album via micromamba create -n album album -c conda-forge, git is included automatically. If you installed via pip, you must install git separately — see for instance this guide.

Tensorboard triggers antivirus alerts (Windows)

Some solutions that use tensorboard (e.g. deep-learning workflows) may trigger the antivirus scanner. Please add tensorboard to the list of safe applications in your antivirus software.

Advanced configuration

Using your own micromamba installation

By default Album downloads and manages its own micromamba binary. If you already have micromamba installed on your system and want Album to use it instead, set the ENVIRONMENT_DEBUGGING_MICROMAMBA_PATH environment variable to point to your existing micromamba executable:

export ENVIRONMENT_DEBUGGING_MICROMAMBA_PATH=/path/to/your/micromamba

On Windows (PowerShell):

$Env:ENVIRONMENT_DEBUGGING_MICROMAMBA_PATH = "C:\path\to\micromamba.exe"

This is useful when working behind a firewall that prevents Album from downloading micromamba, when you need a specific micromamba version, or for development and debugging purposes.