RuntimeError: Bad magic number in .pyc file

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff]

When I launch the program, it prints "RuntimeError: Bad magic number in .pyc file" and quits. Other Python apps work correctly (e.g. Minirok). Tested on Ubuntu Jaunty.

[Benjamin Thyreau (benji2)]

Hi,
Thanks for your report.
This sounds like a runtime compatibility problem.
Can you tell me how you installed the program (package, kde-apps, bzr branch, etc.) ?

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I've downloaded the 0.2.9 deb package from Launchpad. It didn't work, so I tried 0.2.8 and got the same result. By the way, the package didn't appear in Synaptic. I tried apt-get update, but that didn't help. I'm not sure if it is a bug, though.

[Benjamin Thyreau (benji2)]

Thanks for your prompt reply.
This is a "binary" incompatibility between python 2.5 and 2.6 (default in Jaunty).
There is two quick workaround:
- If you have python2.5 and root write access, editing the file /usr/bin/wikipediaDumpReader , changing "python" to "python2.5" (at characted 98) should be enough.
- using the .tar.gz package instead of the .deb should also work, as it doesn't "precompile" any binary "pyc" files.

I don't know if python 2.5 is available in Jaunty in default install. If so, the first fix is the best IMHO. Otherwise, i will need to build a new package with 2.6 "binaries" (pyc files), but as packaging python programs in Ubuntu is such a pain, i will do that later, and let user relies on the .tar.gz package instead

Please let me know if you achieve to make it work with one of the above-mentioned recipe

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Editing /usr/bin/wikipediaDumpReader solved everything. Thanks for such a quick answer!

[Benjamin Thyreau (benji2)]

I just uploaded a new "ubuntu" package with no pyc-files. This one should work on any Python version, and should have negligible starting slowdown as the source code is so short.

May you have time to test it ? It should fixes all the issues, and is available.
http://launchpad.net/wikipediadumpreader/trunk/0.2.9/+download/wikipediaDumpReader-i386-0.2.9j.deb

It also fixes a window-manager glitch regarding the "close" button on Jaunty Qt.

Unless there is a major problem (something not working or performance issue), i will set it as prefered download.

Also, WikipediaDumpReader is not in the official repositories AFAIK. Don't know what i should do for that :-)

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Somebody already requested including WikipediaDumpReader in the official universe repository, see bug #149878. I'll test this new version as soon as I can. It at least starts.

[Benjamin Thyreau (benji2)]

Thanks for testing. Getting the program to start correctly is sufficient, as the fix above only relates to that.

I wasn't aware of "bug" 149878. Yet it is two years, and i'm not sure how exactly posting those has any effect on anything :-)

Anyway, thanks for your reactive help !

[Kaan (kaanunal1996)]

I have a serious problem. Me and my friend spent months to solve this problem but we couldn`t fix that. We were Playing online game but when i format my computer and redownload the game it says - TraceBack Error : Bad Magic Number in Program Files...
if anyone can help us please send me an e-mail. Thank you all.