ImportError: No module named 'PyQt5.QtWebKit'

[bendikro]

After installing retext (5.3.1-1) on 16.04.3, starting retext gives the following trace:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/retext", line 23, in <module>
    from ReText.window import ReTextWindow
  File "/usr/share/retext/ReText/window.py", line 22, in <module>
    from ReText.tab import ReTextTab, PreviewNormal, PreviewLive
  File "/usr/share/retext/ReText/tab.py", line 32, in <module>
    from PyQt5.QtWebKit import QWebSettings
ImportError: No module named 'PyQt5.QtWebKit'

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

That should not happen because retext depends on python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit. Maybe you have a custom PyQt5 installation somewhere that does not have Qt WebKit support?

[Marco Scavazzon (marco-skv)]

Same problem here

marco@ubuntu:~$ retext
Using configuration file: /home/marco/.config/ReText project/ReText.conf
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/retext", line 23, in <module>
    from ReText.window import ReTextWindow
  File "/usr/share/retext/ReText/window.py", line 22, in <module>
    from ReText.tab import ReTextTab, PreviewNormal, PreviewLive
  File "/usr/share/retext/ReText/tab.py", line 32, in <module>
    from PyQt5.QtWebKit import QWebSettings
ImportError: No module named 'PyQt5.QtWebKit'

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

Marco: please see my comment above. Do you have python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit package installed? Do you have any packages installed using pip?

[Marco Scavazzon (marco-skv)]

Hi Dmitry

I don't have a custom PyQT5 installation on my laptop. I tried to reinstall the package python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit without success (still same error). The version installed is 5.5.1+dfsg-3ubuntu4

I have installed packages with pip, but only within virtualenv, not for the system python.

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

Hi Marco, thanks for your feedback.

Can you please open a terminal, launch python3 there, enter these lines and paste the output?

>>> import PyQt5
>>> PyQt5.__path__
>>> import PyQt5.QtCore
>>> PyQt5.QtCore.__file__
>>> import PyQt5.QtWebKit

(lines 2 and 4 should print some paths; line 5 may either succeed or print an exception).

[Marco Scavazzon (marco-skv)]

Thanks for your help.
Here is the output

marco@ubuntu:~$ python3
Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 23 2017, 16:37:01)
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import PyQt5
>>> PyQt5.__path__
['/home/marco/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/PyQt5']
>>> import PyQt5.QtCore
>>> PyQt5.QtCore.__file__
'/home/marco/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/PyQt5/QtCore.so'
>>> import PyQt5.QtWebKit
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named 'PyQt5.QtWebKit'

Is it normal to have such libraries in a hidden virtualenv within the home dir?

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

> /home/marco/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/PyQt5

This means you *do* have a local PyQt5 installation. It is not a virtualenv and this directory is in global Python search path. Delete this directory and ReText should start working.

If you have some local code that needs a custom PyQt5, then use a virtualenv for it.

I am closing this bug as it happens only when a custom PyQt5 installed, and there is no way to fix this. This bug should no longer happen with ReText 6.0 or newer, as WebKit support became optional there.

[Marco Scavazzon (marco-skv)]

Thanks a lot Dmitry. Just one question, do you know what has created that python 3 site-packages directory? Is it a feature of python3?

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

Most probably you ran pip3 install something, and that pulled in PyQt5. Check what else is in your /home/marco/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/ and in /home/marco/.local/bin/ and you will see what it was.

[Marco Scavazzon (marco-skv)]

Too late (I already deleted them to use retext). Anyway, many thanks for your help!