udevdiscover fails to start due to gudev import error

[Kip Warner]

udev-discover fails to launch due to what appears to be a gudev or GObject introspection error.

$ udev-discover
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/udev-discover", line 29, in <module>
    from udevdiscover import DeviceFinder, get_subsystems
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/udevdiscover/__init__.py", line 23, in <module>
    from devicefinder import DeviceFinder, get_subsystems
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/udevdiscover/devicefinder.py", line 26, in <module>
    import gudev
ImportError: could not import gobject (could not find _PyGObject_API object)

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.10
Release: 14.10
Codename: utopic

$ apt-cache show udev-discover
Package: udev-discover
Priority: optional
Section: universe/gnome
Installed-Size: 781
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <email address hidden>
Original-Maintainer: J. Félix Ontañón <email address hidden>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.2.2-1
Depends: gconf2 (>= 2.28.1-2), python2.7, python (>= 2.7.1-0ubuntu2), python (<< 2.8), python-gconf, python-gudev, python-gobject, gir1.2-gtk-3.0, gir1.2-gconf-2.0, gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0, gnome-icon-theme-full | gnome-icon-theme-extras
Filename: pool/universe/u/udev-discover/udev-discover_0.2.2-1_amd64.deb
Size: 104354
MD5sum: dc2c964614f0b26a9dc85d3d7c42613b
SHA1: 68ba4c13fc1283da28a1c5681a3e03fd3aab7f35
SHA256: 32292b963b002133fc56a5ad3a13bad58185f8fe6dcb5b8c94871d9e60e2bfca
Description-en: Sysfs browsing tool focused on helping udev users and developers
 A helping tool for udev testers, coders, hackers and consumers.
    * Browsing the sysfs tree via udev
    * Reports udev device info and udev properties
    * Filter and search devices
    * Monitorize udev device events
Description-md5: 0dede53ee3912c670b5232d72b623118
Homepage: http://fontanon.org/udevdiscover
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu

[Bob Vincent (pillarsdotnet)]

Running strace -vf udev-discover 2>&1 | grep -i '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/.*gobject.*\.so' shows that python is looking for the gobject dll in /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/GObject.x86_64-linux-gnu.so.

So I did this:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gobject/_gobject.x86_64-linux-gnu.so /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/GObject.x86_64-linux-gnu.so

Then re-ran udev-discover, which yielded another error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/udev-discover", line 27, in <module>
    from gi.repository import Gtk, Gdk
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/importer.py", line 145, in load_module
    importlib.import_module('gi.repository.' + dep.split("-")[0])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/importer.py", line 145, in load_module
    importlib.import_module('gi.repository.' + dep.split("-")[0])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/importer.py", line 145, in load_module
    importlib.import_module('gi.repository.' + dep.split("-")[0])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/importer.py", line 146, in load_module
    dynamic_module = load_overrides(introspection_module)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/__init__.py", line 125, in load_overrides
    override_mod = importlib.import_module(override_package_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
ImportError: dynamic module does not define init function (initGObject)

Unfortunately, "grep -rl initGObject /usr/lib" yields zero matches.

[Dan Snider (dephekt)]

I followed up with what Bob posted, I linked the gobject module to where python was looking then ran another trace and piped the output to file (see attached).

[Dan Snider (dephekt)]

Sorry I forgot to mention my system info:

$lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-amd64:core-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-noarch:printing-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-amd64:printing-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-noarch:security-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-amd64:security-9.20160110ubuntu0.2-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

$apt-cache show udev-discover
Package: udev-discover
Priority: optional
Section: universe/gnome
Installed-Size: 679
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <email address hidden>
Original-Maintainer: J. Félix Ontañón <email address hidden>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.2.2-1.2
Depends: gconf2 (>= 2.28.1-2), python:any (<< 2.8), python:any (>= 2.7.5-5~), python-gconf, python-gudev, python-gobject, gir1.2-gtk-3.0, gir1.2-gconf-2.0, gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0, gnome-icon-theme | gnome-icon-theme-extras
Filename: pool/universe/u/udev-discover/udev-discover_0.2.2-1.2_amd64.deb
Size: 50958
MD5sum: af4f5612f561ced026b92cd82d9ecd18
SHA1: de86e844a1d3e6793674918dbba1816e3cb67245
SHA256: 23c47ab459b146185e0d06c37a1d0c400cbf1b609d8e8de449ad3dda67899571
Description-en: Sysfs browsing tool focused on helping udev users and developers
 A helping tool for udev testers, coders, hackers and consumers.
    * Browsing the sysfs tree via udev
    * Reports udev device info and udev properties
    * Filter and search devices
    * Monitorize udev device events
Description-md5: 0dede53ee3912c670b5232d72b623118
Homepage: http://fontanon.org/udevdiscover
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu