I have been attempting to setup and use MetaMap as outlined by Dr. Weissman here:

https://gweissman.github.io/post/using-metamap-with-python-to-access-the-umls-metathesaurus-a-quick-start-guide/

However, I seem to have reached an error while running this code cell:

cons, errs = metam.extract_concepts(note_list,
                                word_sense_disambiguation = True,
                                restrict_to_sts = ['sosy'], # signs and symptoms
                                composite_phrase = 1, # for memory issues
                                prune = 30)

The error is as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileNotFoundError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[66], line 1
----> 1 cons, errs = metam.extract_concepts(note_list,
      2                                 word_sense_disambiguation = True,
      3                                 restrict_to_sts = ['sosy'], # signs and symptoms
      4                                 composite_phrase = 1, # for memory issues
      5                                 prune = 30)

File ~AppDataLocalanaconda3Libsite-packagespymetamapSubprocessBackend.py:190, in SubprocessBackend.extract_concepts(self, sentences, ids, composite_phrase, filename, file_format, allow_acronym_variants, word_sense_disambiguation, allow_large_n, strict_model, relaxed_model, allow_overmatches, allow_concept_gaps, term_processing, no_derivational_variants, derivational_variants, ignore_word_order, unique_acronym_variants, prefer_multiple_concepts, ignore_stop_phrases, compute_all_mappings, prune, mm_data_version, exclude_sources, restrict_to_sources, restrict_to_sts, exclude_sts, no_nums)
    187 input_command.append('-e')
    188 input_command.append(input_text)
--> 190 input_process = subprocess.Popen(input_command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    191 metamap_process = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=input_process.stdout)
    193 output, error = metamap_process.communicate()

File ~AppDataLocalanaconda3Libsubprocess.py:1026, in Popen.__init__(self, args, bufsize, executable, stdin, stdout, stderr, preexec_fn, close_fds, shell, cwd, env, universal_newlines, startupinfo, creationflags, restore_signals, start_new_session, pass_fds, user, group, extra_groups, encoding, errors, text, umask, pipesize, process_group)
   1022         if self.text_mode:
   1023             self.stderr = io.TextIOWrapper(self.stderr,
   1024                     encoding=encoding, errors=errors)
-> 1026     self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
   1027                         pass_fds, cwd, env,
   1028                         startupinfo, creationflags, shell,
   1029                         p2cread, p2cwrite,
   1030                         c2pread, c2pwrite,
   1031                         errread, errwrite,
   1032                         restore_signals,
   1033                         gid, gids, uid, umask,
   1034                         start_new_session, process_group)
   1035 except:
   1036     # Cleanup if the child failed starting.
   1037     for f in filter(None, (self.stdin, self.stdout, self.stderr)):

File ~AppDataLocalanaconda3Libsubprocess.py:1538, in Popen._execute_child(self, args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds, pass_fds, cwd, env, startupinfo, creationflags, shell, p2cread, p2cwrite, c2pread, c2pwrite, errread, errwrite, unused_restore_signals, unused_gid, unused_gids, unused_uid, unused_umask, unused_start_new_session, unused_process_group)
   1536 # Start the process
   1537 try:
-> 1538     hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
   1539                              # no special security
   1540                              None, None,
   1541                              int(not close_fds),
   1542                              creationflags,
   1543                              env,
   1544                              cwd,
   1545                              startupinfo)
   1546 finally:
   1547     # Child is launched. Close the parent's copy of those pipe
   1548     # handles that only the child should have open.  You need
   (...)
   1551     # pipe will not close when the child process exits and the
   1552     # ReadFile will hang.
   1553     self._close_pipe_fds(p2cread, p2cwrite,
   1554                          c2pread, c2pwrite,
   1555                          errread, errwrite)

FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

What I struggle to understand is the actual file being specified. In the last line, it seems a pipe is being closed; however, I don’t see where the FileNotFoundError becomes relevant.

A helpful question posed on StackOverflow was the following:

FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified:

However, in this case the unknown file was explicitly obvious and a solution by changing paths was viable. This doesn’t seem to work in my situation, but I could be wrong as I am not very experienced.

Please advise – any feedback would be greatly appreciated.