hp-doctor and hp-check fail with similar Python tracebacks

[Trey Blancher]

I'm using hplip 3.19.11-1 in Arch Linux (x86_64), with a fully up-to-date system as of this hour. In order to get hp-setup to work properly, I had to install PyQt4 (it would fail to load the PPD for my printer with a Python traceback before I installed this dependency). I'm getting what looks like the same error when running hp-doctor and hp-check, a mismatch between the API version provided by the Python SIP package, and QtCore:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File /usr/bin/hp-doctor, line 297, in <module>
    num_errors, num_warns = dep.validate(DEPENDENCY_RUN_AND_COMPILE_TIME, False)
  File /usr/share/hplip/check.py, line 368, in validate
    self.core.dependencies[dep])
  File /usr/share/hplip/check.py, line 210, in __update_deps_info
    installed_ver = self.core.version_func[deps_info[6]]()
  File /usr/share/hplip/installer/dcheck.py, line 303, in get_pyQt4_version
    from PyQt4 import QtCore
RuntimeError: the sip module implements API v12.0 to v12.6 but the PyQt4.QtCore module requires API v12.7

Through Arch Linux pacman I had sip-4.19.19 installed. I uninstalled it using Python pip (so as not to disturb the dependencies in pacman), and installed sip-5.0.0 via pip. The error still occurred, so it looks to be a problem with the latest stable version of sip. I know Arch Linux isn't directly supported, but I did get hp-setup (GUI) working after installing python-pyqt4. To be honest, when trying to fix the problems with hp-doctor I managed to fix my problem with hp-setup. The problem does appear to be upstream, and I haven't recompiled PyQt4 since upgrading to sip-5.0.0. I'll try that and get back with you.

[Trey Blancher (trey-k)]

When trying to compile PyQt4 with sip-5.0.0 I get the following error:

Error: PyQt4 cannot be built with sip v5 (or later).

So apparently the older sip package doesn't implement API v12.7, only 12.0-12.6. hp-doctor and hp-check will be broken until this is resolved. I will try going the Arch Linux bug tracker to report this. I guess this can be here to help any other Arch users who might run into similar problems.