python-mapnik fails to initialize

[KEVIN KENNY]

A Python script requiring mapnik (and which has been in sporadic use for several years) fails after upgrading to 17.10.

The first line of the script is:

    from mapnik import Box2d, CompositeOp, Envelope, Image, Map, load_map, register_fonts, render

The stack trace (to be attached) reveals that there appears to be missing typeinfo for mapnik::freetype_engine.

I first noticed this in the proposed package 'python3-mapnik', but I rolled the script back to Python2, tried 'python-mapnik' and got the same failure.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: python3-mapnik 1:0.0~20170120-8139e5c-1~exp1build1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-17.20-generic 4.13.8
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Thu Nov 23 09:52:14 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-04-08 (229 days ago)
InstallationMedia:

SourcePackage: python-mapnik
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to artful on 2017-10-25 (29 days ago)

[Bas Couwenberg (sebastic)]

That's what you get when Ubuntu syncs packages from Debian experimental that are not ready for wider use yet.

The mapnik::freetype_engine issue should be fixed with Mapnik 3.0.17 and the python-mapnik package that was rebuilt with it. It should be synced into Ubuntu for inclusion in the next LTS.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Eugene Savelov (savelov)]

in 17.10 the following error displayed -

ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/mapnik/_mapnik.x86_64-linux-gnu.so: undefined symbol: _ZTIN6mapnik15freetype_engineE

when I am trying to recompile python-mapnik from source, I am getting issue described in this report - https://github.com/mapnik/python-mapnik/issues/169