Error when creating a new project

GRASS GRASS user
1

I am using this code to create a new project from bash:
grass -c EPSG:3035 -e ./GRASSDATA/.

I get this error:

ERROR: No CRS is needed for creating mapset <GRASSDATA>, but <EPSG:3035> was provided as CRS. Did you mean to create a new project?

Grass version is: GRASS GIS 8.4.1 on Debian 13

The same happens when using a georefenced file instead of XY. It used to work. Any suggestions on how to work around this?
Thanks!

2

It looks like it’s missing the project name:

grass -c EPSG:3035 -e ./GRASSDATA/mynewproject

3

Thanks. I tried that version (with project name and with/without final slash) as well and I am getting the same error.

Thanks

4

I have tried it myself successfully:

grass84 -c EPSG:3035 -e ./GRASSDATA/mynewproject
Creating new GRASS GIS project <mynewproject>...

mneteler@caddy: ~$ ls -la ./GRASSDATA/mynewproject
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 mneteler mneteler  23 Sep  3 10:32 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 mneteler mneteler  26 Sep  3 10:32 ../
drwxr-xr-x 4 mneteler mneteler 157 Sep  3 10:32 PERMANENT/

Do you have by chance any spurious white space or such included?
(maybe copy-paste it from here, just to be sure)

5

The error appears in a new container with Debian13. I tested the same command with an older container (exact same version of grass, gdal, proj and geos but based on almalinux instead of debian) and it works.

Beside black magic, I think it could be some compilation flags as in both containers all of the above (grass, gdal, proj, geos) are compiled from source. I will try to replicate the same compilation configuration on the debian container and report back.

6

It was difficult to pinpoint the causes of the problem. However we found out it is somehow related to python wrappers.
The solution was to create a wrapper script around grass command that:

  • Detects -c (new project creation) and disable python paths

  • unset of python envs: PYTHONPATH, PYTHON, GRASS_PYTHON, PYTHONHOME, PYTHONUSERBASE,PYTHON3PATH etc

  • Runs project creation and re-sets python envs

  • If NOT -c then it goes ahead with execution of command

Building grass --without-python also solves the problem but the python modules are then missing.

the versions where this happened are :

  • base operative system: debian:trixie-slim
  • grass --version GRASS GIS 8.4.1
gdalinfo --version GDAL 3.11.3 "Eganville", released 2025/07/12
proj --version Rel. 9.6.2, June 4th, 2025
geos-config --version 3.13.1
python --version Python 3.13.5

If you have any insights, they will be really appreciated.
If you think it is useful, I can also open a bug report.
thanks

7

I think it would be useful to create a bug report. There has been some changes and this may be relevant for that.

8

thanks. I opened the bug report.