This error might occur after you attempt to load packages for the first time after installing a module manager. Often times this is simply due to Spack holding an outdated module path and can be fixed by again sourcing the spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh file. Alternatively reloading the .bashrc file (or the equivalent of your shell) should also work.
(this topic was only meant to archive troubleshooting information from the old preCICE wiki)