version.model returns NoneType, failing all model inference calls in production

Problem

version.model returns NoneType, failing all model inference calls in production

Reproduce steps

Take any public project that has a model:
https://universe.roboflow.com/batuhan-yilmaz-mnu8w/segmentationexample/model/5

Run python inference code:

!pip install roboflow -U # <---- version 1.1.36

from roboflow import Roboflow

rf = Roboflow(api_key="API_KEY")
project = rf.workspace().project("segmentationexample")
model = project.version(5).model

model.predict() # <--- AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'predict'
type(model) # <--- NoneType

Expected behavior

Current workaround is to downgrade roboflow to version 1.1.33

!pip install roboflow==1.1.33

from roboflow import Roboflow

rf = Roboflow(api_key="API_KEY")
project = rf.workspace().project("segmentationexample")
model = project.version(5).model

type(model) # <--- roboflow.models.semantic_segmentation.SemanticSegmentationModel

Potential root cause:

https://github.com/roboflow/roboflow-python/pull/276

Start by reproducing the failure with the project.version(5).model example in the issue, then inspect pull request #276 for the potential root cause. The work is done when version.model returns the appropriate model object instead of NoneType and the documented model.predict() call succeeds on the example project.