spyder: Project's folder is not added to sys.path when creating/loading a project with Spyder 5.3.2

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

Using Spyder 5 in a miniconda environment in Windows 10, Spyder does not add the folder to sys.path when loading or creating a project. Therefore, I cannot import functions from other files as expected. Uninstalling miniconda, manually removing leftover folders (like ~.spyder-py3), and starting from a fresh miniconda installation does not help.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Fresh install of miniconda latest.
2. Create and activate Python 3.9 environment: conda create -n myenv python=3.9, conda activate myenv
3. Install numpy, scipy, matplotlib, and spyder in myenv: conda install package (no version specified)
4. Create a new project or load an existing one.
5. Can’t import packages from folders in project. Check sys.path. Folder is not there.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

sys.path should include the project folder. It works in Ubuntu 20, but not in two different machines I’ve tried with Windows 10.

The command window returns an error: zmq.error.ZMQError: not a socket

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.2.2
• Python version: 3.9.12 64-bit
• Qt version: 5.15.12
• PyQt version: PyQt5 5.15.7
• Operating System name/version:

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0          :  1.4.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0               :  4.0.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0           :  2.0.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0          :  1.7.3 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111   :  20200713 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2          :  3.1.0 (OK)
IPython >=7.6.0;<8.0.0        :  7.31.1 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2;<0.19.0         :  0.18.1 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7               :  0.9.0 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0            :  4.4.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0              :  23.4.0 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0               :  6.4.4 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0              :  1.4.0 (OK)
paramiko >=2.4.0              :  2.8.1 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0;<0.9.0          :  0.8.3 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0               :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4             :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                  :  5.9.0 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                :  2.11.2 (OK)
pylint >=2.5.0                :  2.14.5 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0           :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.3.2;<1.4.0          :  1.3.3 (OK)
pylsp_black >=1.0.0           :  1.0.0 (OK)
qdarkstyle =3.0.2             :  3.0.2 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.1.10            :  0.1.10 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.0.2             :  1.0.3 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.2.1;<5.3.0      :  5.2.2 (OK)
qtpy >=1.5.0                  :  2.0.1 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                 :  0.9.7 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0           :  63.4.1 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                :  5.0.2 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.2.1;<2.3.0 :  2.2.1 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0          :  4.2.1 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1           :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3             :  2.1.6 (OK)
zmq >=17                      :  23.2.0 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                 :  None (NOK)
matplotlib >=2.0.0            :  3.5.2 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                   :  1.21.5 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                :  None (NOK)
scipy >=0.17.0                :  1.7.3 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                 :  None (NOK)