How to fix 'Object arrays cannot be loaded when allow_pickle=False' for imdb.load_data() function?

Here's a trick to force imdb.load_data to allow pickle by, in your notebook, replacing this line:

(train_data, train_labels), (test_data, test_labels) = imdb.load_data(num_words=10000)

by this:

import numpy as np
# save np.load
np_load_old = np.load

# modify the default parameters of np.load
np.load = lambda *a,**k: np_load_old(*a, allow_pickle=True, **k)

# call load_data with allow_pickle implicitly set to true
(train_data, train_labels), (test_data, test_labels) = imdb.load_data(num_words=10000)

# restore np.load for future normal usage
np.load = np_load_old

This issue is still up on keras git. I hope it gets solved as soon as possible. Until then, try downgrading your numpy version to 1.16.2. It seems to solve the problem.

!pip install numpy==1.16.1
import numpy as np

This version of numpy has the default value of allow_pickle as True.

I just used allow_pickle = True as an argument to np.load() and it worked for me.

np.load(path, allow_pickle=True)