Why do I get error “Runtime: b'no arguments in initialization list'” when running to_crs?

Question

I have a geopandas dataframe that has POINT geometry in NAD83. I want to use to_crs to change them to espg: 4326. When I first bring in the feature class as a gpd dataframe, it shows no crs, so I use a function to find the source crs and then assign it to the dataframe (my understanding is that to use to_crs it has to already be assigned to a crs).

bldg_feat_cent_df = gpd.read_file(bldg_cent_cb_intersects_gdb, layer=state_bldg_centroid)
print(bldg_feat_cent_df.crs)
>>>None
bldg_feat_cent_df.crs = {'init' :'+proj=aea +lat_1=20 +lat_2=60 +lat_0=40 +lon_0=-96 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=NAD83 +units=m +no_defs'}
print(bldg_feat_cent_df.crs)
>>>'+proj=aea +lat_1=20 +lat_2=60 +lat_0=40 +lon_0=-96 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=NAD83 +units=m +no_defs '

Now that its in a crs, I simply want to apply to_crs. I've tried this a couple of different ways, including inplace=True but I still get the same error:

bldg_reproj = bldg_feat_cent_df.to_crs({'init': 'epsg:4326'})

> RuntimeError: b'no arguments in initialization list'

I had a similar issue trying to use pyproj and it seems like the 2 are related. Conda shows that my pyproj version is 1.96. How can achieve my goal and resolve this issue?

Update: As requested, here's the output when I run the above line:

Answer 1

The issue you are running into is a pyproj 1x issue.

I would recommend installing pyproj 2+. You can do this with conda using the conda-forge channel:

conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda config --set channel_priority strict
conda create -n geo geopandas
conda activate geo

Or, you can install the latest version with python wheels:

pip install --ignore-installed pyproj==2.4.0