anki crashed with ModuleNotFoundError in /usr/share/anki/anki/mpv.py: No module named 'distutils.spawn'

[Rolf Leggewie]

I suspect that a dependency is missing.

Here is the error when starting from the command line

$ anki
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/anki", line 6, in <module>
    import aqt
  File "/usr/share/anki/aqt/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from anki import version as _version
  File "/usr/share/anki/anki/__init__.py", line 14, in <module>
    from anki.storage import Collection
  File "/usr/share/anki/anki/storage.py", line 11, in <module>
    from anki.collection import _Collection
  File "/usr/share/anki/anki/collection.py", line 25, in <module>
    from anki.sound import stripSounds
  File "/usr/share/anki/anki/sound.py", line 87, in <module>
    from anki.mpv import MPV, MPVBase
  File "/usr/share/anki/anki/mpv.py", line 39, in <module>
    from distutils.spawn import find_executable
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils.spawn'

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: anki 2.1.0+dfsg~b36-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-13.14-generic 4.15.10
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity:Unity7:ubuntu
Date: Sun Apr 8 16:56:22 2018
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/anki
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.6
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/anki
Python3Details: /usr/bin/python3.6, Python 3.6.5, python3-minimal, 3.6.5-2
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/anki']
PythonDetails: /usr/bin/python2.7, Python 2.7.14+, python-minimal, 2.7.14-4
SourcePackage: anki
Title: anki crashed with ModuleNotFoundError in /usr/share/anki/anki/mpv.py: No module named 'distutils.spawn'
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Fiona Klute (fiona-klute)]

I solved the problem by installing the python3-distutils package. Please update the dependencies accordingly.

[Peter (tvoispam)]

I have the same problem on fresh install Xubuntu 18.04 LTS, on Virtualbox. Screen shot in attachment.

[Pcb (pcb123)]

I did install the package mentioned above and now I get the following error when I start anki from the Terminal and doing 2 (Chinese)-Flashcards:

(python3:12055): dbind-WARNING **: 11:39:05.153: Couldn't register with accessibility bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
This is an BETA build - please do not package it up for Linux distributions
onmessage is not a callable property of qt.webChannelTransport. Some things might not work as expected.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

[Beveron Klintsior (beveron.klintsior)]

Thanks, Fiona. Installing the python3-distutils package worked for me as well on Linux Mint 19. I was able to open Anki normally.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

@pcb, please file a separate bug for that issue.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

This has been fixed in the latest Debian upload which has been sync'd to Ubuntu+1

anki (2.1.0+dfsg-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * A stable upstream release! (Closes: #855942)
  * Explicitly depend on Qt5 library version >> 5.11 (Closes: #895411)
  * Depend on python3-distutils (Closes: #905291)
  * No longer mention mplayer2 in the control file (Closes: #841189)

 -- Julian Gilbey <email address hidden> Mon, 06 Aug 2018 18:52:22 +0100

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Rolf, I uploaded your fix to the bionic queue. It will need to be manually approved by a member of the Ubuntu Stable Release team before it will be available there for testing.

Could you please update this bug's description to follow https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure ?

I am unsubscribing ubuntu-sponsors since there is nothing left here to sponsor. Please feel free to resubscribe if you have anything else that needs sponsoring.

In the future, please ensure that the bug you attach a patch to is not in Fix Released state. You can either ask an Ubuntu developer to open a task for the stable release (in other words, the bionic In Progress part in the bug header) or change the status back to something like Confirmed.

That will allow it to show up in http://reqorts.qa.ubuntu.com/reports/sponsoring/ I happened to be notified of a duplicate bug; otherwise no one would have seen this bug.

I made a few changes to the debdiff:
- The debdiff needs to apply against the bionic package not the cosmic or Debian release.
- Please run update-maintainer from ubuntu-dev-tools
- And the changelog version number needs to be lower than the version in the next release.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Based on my recollection at the time python3-distutils was split out, I understood that packages were generally expected to not use python3-distutils at runtime. Matthias, can you review this and comment on whether this is sensible (as a solution to this problem in Debian unstable and in cosmic) before we accept this SRU?

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

yes, this should be replaced by shutil.which

[Robie Basak (racb)]

An upload of anki to bionic-proposed has been rejected from the upload queue for the following reason: "Please use different fix as discussed.".

[Dieter Fedra (dfedra)]

In the meantime I installed Ubuntu 18.04 on another PC (lenovo Thinkpad i5 64bit)
and thereafter Anki in Version 2.1.0beta36 from
the link given by the "https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Anki/" website

This link include the installation of python3-disutils
and everything works fine so far!

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Matthias, could you or someone report your suggested fix to Debian since Ubuntu's anki is in sync with Debian?

[leonardo (leonardoapolinario)]

The error persists in Linux Mint 19.1. I solved it installing python3-disutils.