After investigating the code, I found a potential cause of the issue in tensorflow_hub/keras_layer.py lines 26-31:

# Use Keras 2.
version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
if version_fn and version_fn().startswith("3."):
  import tf_keras as keras
else:
  keras = tf.keras

Depending on the Keras version, the module might either import tf_keras or directly use tf.keras, the former causes the isinstance(layer, Layer) check in Sequential.add to return False for hub.KerasLayer, even though it inherits from keras.layers.Layer

Hi @ruddyscent ,

TFHub has dependency on tf_keras package (i.e Keras2) as per the setup.py of TFHub.

https://github.com/tensorflow/hub/blob/ff72e25fef44bd67d5c14fb5328aa44e303e3404/tensorflow_hub/pip_package/setup.py#L31

Since TF2.16 comes with Keras3 the problem arises. As a workaround, you can install tf_keras package and set environment variable TF_USE_LEGACY_KERAS=1 to ensure Keras2 will be used with tf.keras.

After investigating the code, I found a potential cause of the issue in tensorflow_hub/keras_layer.py lines 26-31:

# Use Keras 2.
version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
if version_fn and version_fn().startswith("3."):
  import tf_keras as keras
else:
  keras = tf.keras

Depending on the Keras version, the module might either import tf_keras or directly use tf.keras, the latter causes the isinstance(layer, Layer) check in Sequential.add to return False for hub.KerasLayer, even though it inherits from keras.layers.Layer

Hi, When I tried with TF2.16v on Colab environment the error stack seems generated from the _ensure_keras_2_importable() function from tensorflow_hub/__init__.py as per attached gist.

# Use Keras 2.
version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
if version_fn and version_fn().startswith("3."):
  import tf_keras as keras
else:
  keras = tf.keras

Even this code seems confusing to me. If version_fn results in Keras3 then it tries to import tf_keras to use Keras2 else it assumes Keras2 is alreday there(i.e TF<=2.15v) hence it takes keras=tf.keras.

But version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None) returns None making this to use tf.keras (i.e Keras3) which ic not compatible with TF_Hub.

# Use Keras 2.
version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
if version_fn and version_fn().startswith("3."):
  import tf_keras as keras
else:
  keras = tf.keras

Even this code seems confusing to me. If version_fn results in Keras3 then it tries to import tf_keras to use Keras2 else it assumes Keras2 is alreday there(i.e TF<=2.15v) hence it takes keras=tf.keras.

But version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None) returns None making this to use tf.keras (i.e Keras3) which ic not compatible with TF_Hub.

Actually, version_fn is not None, that code works as intended, which is to use Keras 2

tf.keras.Sequential is on Keras 3. and hub.KerasLayer is on Keras 2, so I believe due to the version difference, it causes isinstance(layer, Layer) to fail and return False

# Use Keras 2.
version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
if version_fn and version_fn().startswith("3."):
  import tf_keras as keras

From the code above if version_fn is not None and if it starts with "3" (which means Keras 3 found) in that case it is importing tf_keras package as keras. Please note that tf_keras package is for Keras2. This indicates TFHub supports only Keras2 package.

The else part it assumes that version_fn doesn't starts with "3" which case it assumes Keras2 installed with TF package and it marks keras=tf.keras. But for any case if version_fn becomes None and if Keras3 installed with TF then tf.keras will become Keras3 which might a problem.

@Aloqeely , Could you please import TF2.16 and confirm what will be the version_fn output ?

Here you go

import tensorflow as tf

version_fn = getattr(tf.keras, "version", None)
print("TF Version: " + tf.__version__)
print("TF Keras Version: " + version_fn())

Output:

TF Version: 2.16.1
TF Keras Version: 3.0.5

Hi @ruddyscent ,

TFHub has dependency on tf_keras package (i.e Keras2) as per the setup.py of TFHub.

https://github.com/tensorflow/hub/blob/ff72e25fef44bd67d5c14fb5328aa44e303e3404/tensorflow_hub/pip_package/setup.py#L31

Since TF2.16 comes with Keras3 the problem arises. As a workaround, you can install tf_keras package and set environment variable TF_USE_LEGACY_KERAS=1 to ensure Keras2 will be used with tf.keras.

If this workaround fixes ruddyscent's problem, then I think we should mark this issue as resolved, because the problem is tensorflow hub not supporting Keras 3, so it is not relevant to this repository.

3.0.5

This means when tf.keras version is 3.x then Hub suggesting to import tf_keras as keras which is a Keras2 package. For that we should install with tf_keras package using pip install tf_keras. But from the error log the package is having keras/src which seems to be from Keras3 package for me.

This means when tf.keras version is 3.x then Hub suggesting to import tf_keras as keras which is a Keras2 package. For that we should install with tf_keras package using pip install tf_keras. But from the error log the package is having keras/src which seems to be from Keras3 package for me.

Yep, hub does that.
The error log is caused by tf.keras.Sequential (Keras 3, hence the error is produced from keras/src) after it received a hub.KerasLayer (Keras 2)

win10, no gpu, no colab

tensorflow_hub를 사용하시려면 다음과 같이 해보세요
import tensorflow as tf
import tensorflow_hub as hub
import tf_keras as keras """tensorflow_hub 설치시 자동으로 설치됩니다."

...
...
model = keras.Sequential([ """"tf.keras --> keras"""
hub,KerasLayer(url, input_shape=(size, size, 3)
...
...
imgfile = keras.utils.get_file('image.jpg', 'https://..........') """"tf.keras --> keras"""
작동이 잘됩니다.

Thank you, @sj-yoon, for your assistance.

The solution provided by @SuryanarayanaY works well for my situation.

I had the same issue, and I could fix it with the solution provided by @SuryanarayanaY. Thanks

Others can check my notebook for steps to fix it at this page.