Since today, every AI notebook I provision seems to be missing xlrd. Installing it with conda lands me in package hell: Trying to load an xlsx. First error: xlrd missing, install it. After installing xlrd: the current version (>=2) only supports xls, not xlsx.
One of the reasons I'm using GCP AI platform notebooks is this used to be hassle free. Does anyone have a fix or knowledge what is going on?
According to the this documentation xlrd library will no longer read anything other than .xls files. They recommend to look in Working with Excel Files in Python to check alternatives to xlsx files. As @ArthurBorshenko commented in your question, openpyxl is one option.
To install dependencies in AI Platform Notebooks follow the official documentation.