diff --git a/_pytest/main.py b/_pytest/main.py
index f18466162..ec6657ae9 100644
--- a/_pytest/main.py
+++ b/_pytest/main.py
@@ -77,6 +77,16 @@ def pytest_addoption(parser):
                help="base temporary directory for this test run.")
 
 
+
+def pytest_namespace():
+    """keeping this one works around a deeper startup issue in pytest
+
+    i tried to find it for a while but the amount of time turned unsustainable,
+    so i put a hack in to revisit later
+    """
+    return {}
+
+
 def pytest_configure(config):
     __import__('pytest').config = config # compatibiltiy