# Error when trying to use scvi.model.SCANVI.from\_scvi\_model

**URL:** <https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322>\
**Category:** scvi-tools\
**Created:** [June 6, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322 "2024-06-06T15:23:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hariesramdhani](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/hariesramdhani/32/1073_2.png) [@hariesramdhani](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/hariesramdhani)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/1 "2024-06-06T15:23:29Z")

</div>

Hi I am trying to do label transfer using scvi, however when I try to run

```auto
scanvi_model = scvi.model.SCANVI.from_scvi_model(
    scvi_model,
    adata=reference_adata,
    unlabeled_category="Unknown",
    labels_key=SCANVI_CELLTYPE_KEY,
)

```

I got the following error

```auto
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[8], line 1
----> 1 scanvi_model = scvi.model.SCANVI.from_scvi_model(
      2 scvi_model,
      3 adata=reference_adata,
      4 unlabeled_category="Unknown",
      5 labels_key=SCANVI_CELLTYPE_KEY,
      6 )

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/model/_scanvi.py:244, in SCANVI.from_scvi_model(cls, scvi_model, unlabeled_category, labels_key, adata, **scanvi_kwargs)
    242 if scvi_labels_key is None:
    243 scvi_setup_args.update({"labels_key": labels_key})
--> 244 cls.setup_anndata(
    245 adata,
    246 unlabeled_category=unlabeled_category,
    247 **scvi_setup_args,
    248 )
    249 scanvi_model = cls(adata, **non_kwargs,** kwargs, **scanvi_kwargs)
    250 scvi_state_dict = scvi_model.module.state_dict()

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/model/_scanvi.py:481, in SCANVI.setup_anndata(cls, adata, labels_key, unlabeled_category, layer, batch_key, size_factor_key, categorical_covariate_keys, continuous_covariate_keys, **kwargs)
    479 anndata_fields += cls._get_fields_for_adata_minification(adata_minify_type)
    480 adata_manager = AnnDataManager(fields=anndata_fields, setup_method_args=setup_method_args)
--> 481 adata_manager.register_fields(adata, **kwargs)
    482 cls.register_manager(adata_manager)

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/data/_manager.py:174, in AnnDataManager.register_fields(self, adata, source_registry, **transfer_kwargs)
    171 self._validate_anndata_object(adata)
    173 for field in self.fields:
--> 174 self._add_field(
    175 field=field,
    176 adata=adata,
    177 source_registry=source_registry,
    178 **transfer_kwargs,
    179 )
    181 # Save arguments for register_fields.
    182 self._source_registry = deepcopy(source_registry)

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/data/_manager.py:217, in AnnDataManager._add_field(self, field, adata, source_registry, **transfer_kwargs)
    209 field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY] = field.transfer_field(
    210 source_registry[_constants._FIELD_REGISTRIES_KEY][field.registry_key][
    211 _constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY
   (...)
    214 **transfer_kwargs,
    215 )
    216 else:
--> 217 field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY] = field.register_field(adata)
    218 # Compute and set summary stats for the given field.
    219 state_registry = field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY]

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/data/fields/_scanvi.py:73, in LabelsWithUnlabeledObsField.register_field(self, adata)
     71 state_registry = super().register_field(adata)
     72 mapping = state_registry[self.CATEGORICAL_MAPPING_KEY]
---> 73 return self._remap_unlabeled_to_final_category(adata, mapping)

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/data/fields/_scanvi.py:56, in LabelsWithUnlabeledObsField._remap_unlabeled_to_final_category(self, adata, mapping)
     54 cat_dtype = CategoricalDtype(categories=mapping, ordered=True)
     55 # rerun setup for the batch column
---> 56 mapping = _make_column_categorical(
     57 adata.obs,
     58 self._original_attr_key,
     59 self.attr_key,
     60 categorical_dtype=cat_dtype,
     61 )
     63 return {
     64 self.CATEGORICAL_MAPPING_KEY: mapping,
     65 self.ORIGINAL_ATTR_KEY: self._original_attr_key,
     66 self.UNLABELED_CATEGORY: self._unlabeled_category,
     67 }

File scanvi/label_transfer/lib/python3.11/site-packages/scvi/data/_utils.py:219, in _make_column_categorical(df, column_key, alternate_column_key, categorical_dtype)
    217 if -1 in unique:
    218 received_categories = df[column_key].astype("category").cat.categories
--> 219 raise ValueError(
    220 f'Making .obs["{column_key}"] categorical failed. Expected categories: {mapping}. '
    221 f"Received categories: {received_categories}. "
    222 )
    223 df[alternate_column_key] = codes
    225 # make sure each category contains enough cells

ValueError: Making .obs["_scvi_labels"] categorical failed. Expected categories: ['0' 'Unknown']. Received categories: Int64Index([0], dtype='int64'). 

```

My reference\_adata looks like this

```auto
AnnData object with n_obs × n_vars = 601056 × 5000
    obs: 'sex', 'tissue', 'ethnicity', 'disease', 'assay', 'assay_ontology_term_id', 'sample_id', 'donor_id', 'dataset_id', 'development_stage', 'cell_type', 'n_genes_by_counts', 'log1p_n_genes_by_counts', 'total_counts', 'log1p_total_counts', 'pct_counts_in_top_50_genes', 'pct_counts_in_top_100_genes', 'pct_counts_in_top_200_genes', 'pct_counts_in_top_500_genes', 'n_counts', '_scvi_batch', '_scvi_labels', 'celltype_scanvi'
    var: 'n_cells', 'highly_variable', 'means', 'dispersions', 'dispersions_norm'
    uns: '_scvi', 'hvg', 'log1p', '_scvi_uuid', '_scvi_manager_uuid'
    layers: 'counts'

```

and this is how I load my `scvi_model`

```auto
scvi_model = scvi.model.SCVI.load("model/model_COVID19_reference_atlas_scvi0.16.2", reference_adata)

```

and this is the version of the packages installed in the environment that I created

```auto
absl-py==2.1.0
aiohttp==3.9.5
aiosignal==1.3.1
anndata==0.10.7
appnope==0.1.4
array_api_compat==1.7.1
asttokens==2.4.1
attrs==23.2.0
chex==0.1.86
comm==0.2.2
contextlib2==21.6.0
contourpy==1.2.1
cycler==0.12.1
debugpy==1.8.1
decorator==5.1.1
docrep==0.3.2
et-xmlfile==1.1.0
etils==1.9.1
executing==2.0.1
filelock==3.14.0
flax==0.8.4
fonttools==4.53.0
frozenlist==1.4.1
fsspec==2024.6.0
future==1.0.0
grpcio==1.64.1
h5py==3.11.0
idna==3.7
importlib_resources==6.4.0
IProgress==0.4
ipykernel==6.29.4
ipython==8.25.0
ipywidgets==8.1.3
jax==0.4.28
jaxlib==0.4.28
jedi==0.19.1
Jinja2==3.1.4
joblib==1.4.2
jupyter_client==8.6.2
jupyter_core==5.7.2
jupyterlab_widgets==3.0.11
kiwisolver==1.4.5
legacy-api-wrap==1.4
lightning==2.1.4
lightning-utilities==0.11.2
llvmlite==0.42.0
Markdown==3.6
markdown-it-py==3.0.0
MarkupSafe==2.1.5
matplotlib==3.9.0
matplotlib-inline==0.1.7
mdurl==0.1.2
ml-dtypes==0.4.0
ml_collections==0.1.1
mpmath==1.3.0
msgpack==1.0.8
mudata==0.2.3
multidict==6.0.5
multipledispatch==1.0.0
natsort==8.4.0
nest-asyncio==1.6.0
networkx==3.3
numba==0.59.1
numpy==1.26.4
numpyro==0.15.0
openpyxl==3.1.3
opt-einsum==3.3.0
optax==0.2.2
orbax-checkpoint==0.5.15
packaging==24.0
pandas==1.5.3
parso==0.8.4
patsy==0.5.6
pexpect==4.9.0
pillow==10.3.0
platformdirs==4.2.2
prompt_toolkit==3.0.46
protobuf==5.27.0
psutil==5.9.8
ptyprocess==0.7.0
pure-eval==0.2.2
pyDeprecate==0.3.1
Pygments==2.18.0
pynndescent==0.5.12
pyparsing==3.1.2
pyro-api==0.1.2
pyro-ppl==1.9.1
python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0
pytorch-lightning==1.5.10
pytz==2024.1
PyYAML==6.0.1
pyzmq==26.0.3
rich==13.7.1
scanpy==1.10.1
scikit-learn==1.5.0
scipy==1.13.1
scvi-tools==1.1.2
seaborn==0.13.2
session_info==1.0.0
six==1.16.0
stack-data==0.6.3
statsmodels==0.14.2
stdlib-list==0.10.0
sympy==1.12.1
tensorboard==2.16.2
tensorboard-data-server==0.7.2
tensorstore==0.1.60
threadpoolctl==3.5.0
toolz==0.12.1
torch==2.3.1
torchmetrics==1.4.0.post0
tornado==6.4
tqdm==4.66.4
traitlets==5.14.3
typing_extensions==4.12.1
tzdata==2024.1
umap-learn==0.5.6
wcwidth==0.2.13
Werkzeug==3.0.3
widgetsnbextension==4.0.11
yarl==1.9.4
zipp==3.19.2

```

Thanks in advance, for the help

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cane11](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/cane11/32/241_2.png) [@cane11](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/cane11)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 3:38am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/2 "2024-06-19T03:38:04Z")

</div>

Hi, can you make the column categorical before inputting to scANVI. This will create an error message that is easier to debug.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hariesramdhani](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/hariesramdhani/32/1073_2.png) [@hariesramdhani](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/hariesramdhani)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2024, 2:38pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/3 "2024-07-12T14:38:04Z")

</div>

Hi @cane11 thanks for the reply, sorry I somehow missed this reply notification, also I ended up solving my problem a while back by just retraining the model using the newer version of scvi. So I think we can close this topic. Thanks again.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eviezh](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/eviezh/32/1463_2.png) [@eviezh](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/eviezh)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/4 "2025-07-18T17:43:07Z")

</div>

Hi everyone, relatively new user here and I’m having the exact same error as the original post while trying to do label transfer.

I did try making my `labels_key` column categorical but nothing seemed to change. I would also strongly prefer not to retrain the scvi model, if possible.

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Some additional info–when I run

```auto
scvi_epithelial.view_anndata_setup(adata_epithelial)

```

the output is as follows:

```auto
Anndata setup with scvi-tools version 1.3.1.post1.

Setup via `SCVI.setup_anndata` with arguments:

{
│ 'layer': 'counts',
│ 'batch_key': '_scvi_batch',
│ 'labels_key': '_scvi_labels',
│ 'size_factor_key': None,
│ 'categorical_covariate_keys': ['version_10x'],
│ 'continuous_covariate_keys': None
}

         Summary Statistics          
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Summary Stat Key ┃ Value ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━┩
│ n_batch │ 1 │
│ n_cells │ 950338 │
│ n_extra_categorical_covs │ 1 │
│ n_extra_continuous_covs │ 0 │
│ n_labels │ 1 │
│ n_vars │ 5000 │
└──────────────────────────┴────────┘

                             Data Registry                             
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Registry Key ┃ scvi-tools Location ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ X │ adata.layers['counts'] │
│ batch │ adata.obs['_scvi_batch'] │
│ extra_categorical_covs │ adata.obsm['_scvi_extra_categorical_covs'] │
│ labels │ adata.obs['_scvi_labels'] │
└────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────┘

                     batch State Registry                      
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Source Location ┃ Categories ┃ scvi-tools Encoding ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ adata.obs['_scvi_batch'] │ 0 │ 0 │
└──────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────┘

                     labels State Registry                      
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Source Location ┃ Categories ┃ scvi-tools Encoding ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ adata.obs['_scvi_labels'] │ 0 │ 0 │
└───────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────┘

             extra_categorical_covs State Registry             
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Source Location ┃ Categories ┃ scvi-tools Encoding ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ adata.obs['version_10x'] │ v1 │ 0 │
│ │ v2 │ 1 │
│ │ │ │
└──────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────┘

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ori-kron-wis](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/ori-kron-wis/32/1099_2.png) [@ori-kron-wis](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/ori-kron-wis)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 7:25am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/5 "2025-07-21T07:25:07Z")

</div>

Hey,  
Not entirely sure what is the failure? you did not attached the error message/log or reproduction code.  
Is it because you upgraded scvi-tools after 1st modelling and now want to do the label transfer?  
Did you use special parametrization during modelling or initialization?  
Is your reference data has the same categorical\_covariate?  
More information will be helpful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eviezh](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/eviezh/32/1463_2.png) [@eviezh](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/eviezh)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/6 "2025-07-21T17:27:23Z")

</div>

hey, thanks for the response! here’s some more information that will hopefully be helpful

the code i ran:

```auto
scanvi_ref_epithelial = scvi.model.SCANVI.from_scvi_model(
    scvi_epithelial,
    unlabeled_category="Unknown",
    labels_key=SCANVI_LABELS_KEY,)

```

the error:

```auto
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[58], line 4
      1 # unlabeled category does not exist in adata.obs[labels_key]
      2 # so all cells are treated as labeled
----> 4 scanvi_ref_epithelial = scvi.model.SCANVI.from_scvi_model(
      5 scvi_epithelial,
      6 unlabeled_category="Unknown",
      7 labels_key=SCANVI_LABELS_KEY,)

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/model/_scanvi.py:283, in SCANVI.from_scvi_model(cls, scvi_model, unlabeled_category, labels_key, adata, registry, **scanvi_kwargs)
    281 scvi_setup_args.update({"labels_key": labels_key})
    282 if adata is not None:
--> 283 cls.setup_anndata(
    284 adata,
    285 unlabeled_category=unlabeled_category,
    286 use_minified=False,
    287 **scvi_setup_args,
    288 )
    290 scanvi_model = cls(adata, scvi_model.registry, **non_kwargs,** kwargs, **scanvi_kwargs)
    291 scvi_state_dict = scvi_model.module.state_dict()

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/model/_scanvi.py:344, in SCANVI.setup_anndata(cls, adata, labels_key, unlabeled_category, layer, batch_key, size_factor_key, categorical_covariate_keys, continuous_covariate_keys, use_minified, **kwargs)
    340 anndata_fields += cls._get_fields_for_adata_minification(adata_minify_type)
    341 adata_manager = AnnDataManager(
    342 fields=anndata_fields, setup_method_args=setup_method_args
    343 )
--> 344 adata_manager.register_fields(adata, **kwargs)
    345 cls.register_manager(adata_manager)

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/data/_manager.py:185, in AnnDataManager.register_fields(self, adata, source_registry, **transfer_kwargs)
    182 self._validate_anndata_object(adata)
    184 for field in self.fields:
--> 185 self._add_field(
    186 field=field,
    187 adata=adata,
    188 source_registry=source_registry,
    189 **transfer_kwargs,
    190 )
    192 # Save arguments for register_fields.
    193 self._source_registry = deepcopy(source_registry)

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/data/_manager.py:228, in AnnDataManager._add_field(self, field, adata, source_registry, **transfer_kwargs)
    220 field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY] = field.transfer_field(
    221 source_registry[_constants._FIELD_REGISTRIES_KEY][field.registry_key][
    222 _constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY
   (...)
    225 **transfer_kwargs,
    226 )
    227 else:
--> 228 field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY] = field.register_field(adata)
    229 # Compute and set summary stats for the given field.
    230 state_registry = field_registry[_constants._STATE_REGISTRY_KEY]

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/data/fields/_scanvi.py:73, in LabelsWithUnlabeledObsField.register_field(self, adata)
     71 state_registry = super().register_field(adata)
     72 mapping = state_registry[self.CATEGORICAL_MAPPING_KEY]
---> 73 return self._remap_unlabeled_to_final_category(adata, mapping)

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/data/fields/_scanvi.py:56, in LabelsWithUnlabeledObsField._remap_unlabeled_to_final_category(self, adata, mapping)
     54 cat_dtype = CategoricalDtype(categories=mapping, ordered=True)
     55 # rerun setup for the batch column
---> 56 mapping = _make_column_categorical(
     57 adata.obs,
     58 self._original_attr_key,
     59 self.attr_key,
     60 categorical_dtype=cat_dtype,
     61 )
     63 return {
     64 self.CATEGORICAL_MAPPING_KEY: mapping,
     65 self.ORIGINAL_ATTR_KEY: self._original_attr_key,
     66 self.UNLABELED_CATEGORY: self._unlabeled_category,
     67 }

File ~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/scvi/data/_utils.py:217, in _make_column_categorical(df, column_key, alternate_column_key, categorical_dtype)
    215 if -1 in unique:
    216 received_categories = df[column_key].astype("category").cat.categories
--> 217 raise ValueError(
    218 f'Making .obs["{column_key}"] categorical failed. Expected categories: {mapping}. '
    219 f"Received categories: {received_categories}. "
    220 )
    221 df[alternate_column_key] = codes
    223 # make sure each category contains enough cells

ValueError: Making .obs["_scvi_labels"] categorical failed. Expected categories: ['0' 'Unknown']. Received categories: Int64Index([0], dtype='int64'). 

```

- i did upgrade scvi-tools after the model was first trained. right now, i am hoping to do label transfer with scANVI, using the existing scvi model (trained on reference data)
- here are the parameters used for the original scvi model:

```auto
# scVI model on reference

scvi.model.SCVI.setup_anndata(
    adata,
    layer="counts",
    categorical_covariate_keys=["version_10x"] 
)

model = scvi.model.SCVI(adata,
                       n_latent = 30, 
                       gene_likelihood = "nb",
                       n_layers = 2
                       )

```

- yes, the categorical\_covariate is the same in the reference and query data

hoping to be able to use the existing scvi model as the reference…but if scANVI isn’t compatible with older version of scvi should i just rerun the scvi model on the reference?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ori-kron-wis](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/ori-kron-wis/32/1099_2.png) [@ori-kron-wis](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/ori-kron-wis)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/7 "2025-07-22T11:31:18Z")

</div>

Hey,

I was able to reproduce it. It not version dependent.

Basically I think that your original model was trained with labels as integer (0) and the new one has them as strings (“0”), or vice versa. They both should be string though, like: “label\_0”  
Are there any Nan’s on any of the labels column - change to to what is the unlabeled\_category you gave (“Unknown”, in your case).

Try to see those things that I mentioned solve this, otherwise, retrain it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eviezh](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.scverse.org/eviezh/32/1463_2.png) [@eviezh](https://discourse.scverse.org/u/eviezh)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://discourse.scverse.org/t/error-when-trying-to-use-scvi-model-scanvi-from-scvi-model/2322/8 "2025-07-22T17:06:17Z")

</div>

thanks for your suggestions!

I did end up re-running the scVI model. The main change was that my batch variable was placed under `"batch_key"` instead of `"categorical_covariate_keys".`

Interestingly, although `"labels_key"` was set to the default (no parameter was specified) in **both** model initializations, the original model had `'labels_key': _scvi_labels` while this model had `'labels_key': None` when viewing `model.view_anndata_setup`.

This time, the label transfer with scANVI ran without issue. This does make sense, since the specific column where the error was occurring with the original model was `'_scvi_labels.'`

The first time the error occurred, I did go in and manually convert the integer values in `'_scvi_labels.'` into strings, similar to your suggestion. (The column is all 0s, nothing else.) However, when I tried to run the same code that initialized the scANVI model again after converting the column, the same error occurred and I found that the values in the column were back to integers.

I also tried re-loading the original scVI model after converting the column. Loading the original scVI model gave me this error:

```auto
ValueError: Category 0 not found in source registry. Cannot transfer setup without `extend_categories = True`.

```

Hope this all made sense! I’m planning to proceed using the new scVI model, but I wanted to follow up with everything I found in case others experience this same issue.