Calibre stopped working in Debian testing

[cokowiek]

Hey,

Calibre stopped working after a recent update in Debian testing:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=827922

Is there any fix for that?

[cokowiek]

I've installed packages python-pyicu and python3-icu and now I get this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/utils/icu.py", line 41, in <module>
_icu.set_default_encoding(b'utf-8')
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'set_default_encoding'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/calibre", line 19, in <module>
from calibre.gui_launch import calibre
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/__init__.py", line 22, in <module>
from calibre.startup import winutil, winutilerror
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/startup.py", line 149, in <module>
from calibre.utils.icu import title_case, lower as icu_lower, upper as icu_upper
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/utils/icu.py", line 232, in <module>
safe_chr = _icu.chr
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'chr'
/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/ptempfile.py:27: RuntimeWarning: Parent module 'calibre' not found while handling absolute import
import shutil

[darryl]

Don't use the Debian package or in fact the package from any distribution. Use the installer from the Calibre website. This is the recommended method of installing and updating Calibre. If you must use the Debian package it is unlikely you will find help on these forums. Better to post a bug at Debian.

[cokowiek]

Originally Posted by darryl

Don't use the Debian package or in fact the package from any distribution. Use the installer from the Calibre website. This is the recommended method of installing and updating Calibre. If you must use the Debian package it is unlikely you will find help on these forums. Better to post a bug at Debian.

It works beautifully, thanks!

[eschwartz]

FWIW, it works fine on Arch Linux, and it really should be as simple as having the calibre binary plugins properly compiled (it has nothing whatsoever to do with any icu python modules).

IOW, this is entirely Debian's responsibility, and we have no idea what they may have messed up.

But as darryl said, if the distro cannot get it working properly, just use the binary installer.
And the distros usually manage to mess up something regarding calibre. Usually the deliberately-removed python modules which are replaced by incompatible upstream projects.

[brian_meadows]

The problem with the binary installer on Debian Testing (a.k.a. stretch) is that it needs libnettle4, and this has apparently been superseded by libnettle6 in testing.

At the moment I have Calibre 2.60 working in testing, it was downloaded from the Debian repositories, but it's only still there because I held it against upgrades - a dist-upgrade wants to remove Calibre.

[eschwartz]

Um, what? I have libnettle6 on this Arch Linux system right here (and have, since June 2015). The calibre binary installer works fine, probably because it doesn't depend on nettle in any way.

In the unlikely event that it was somehow needed, calibre already ships all dependent libraries except for glibc >= 2.13 and libstdc++ >= 6.0.17 inside the binary installer, precisely so issues like this cannot happen.

So if you are having problems with the binary installer, please post all relevant error messages. It is by definition meant to work everywhere, so regardless of the issue, Kovid will want to know.


Also, I can guarantee you beyond all shadow of a doubt that you don't have the problem in this thread, because if you look at the Debian bugreport, they fixed it a week later after they discovered the problem was a completely and utterly empty "calibre-bin" package.

So, an explanation for why you are posting in this old thread would be appreciated.

[brian_meadows]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, what? I have libnettle6 on this Arch Linux system right here (and have, since June 2015). The calibre binary installer works fine, probably because it doesn't depend on nettle in any way.

In the unlikely event that it was somehow needed, calibre already ships all dependent libraries except for glibc >= 2.13 and libstdc++ >= 6.0.17 inside the binary installer, precisely so issues like this cannot happen.

So if you are having problems with the binary installer, please post all relevant error messages. It is by definition meant to work everywhere, so regardless of the issue, Kovid will want to know.


Also, I can guarantee you beyond all shadow of a doubt that you don't have the problem in this thread, because if you look at the Debian bugreport, they fixed it a week later after they discovered the problem was a completely and utterly empty "calibre-bin" package.

So, an explanation for why you are posting in this old thread would be appreciated.

OK, I gave it another look. Yes, I misread something, mea culpa. It's not Calibre itself which generates the libnettle error, it's the use of wget as part of the process.

<paste>

brian@brian:~$ sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ko...x-installer.py | sudo python -c "import sys; main=lambda:sys.stderr.write('Download failed\n'); exec(sys.stdin.read()); main()"
[sudo] password for brian:
wget: error while loading shared libraries: libnettle.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Download failed

</paste>

Just to confirm...

<paste>

brian@brian:~$ wget
wget: error while loading shared libraries: libnettle.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
brian@brian:~$

</paste>

Now, I stick by what I said that doing a dist-upgrade on Debian Stretch, at least last time I tried it (within the last week) will warn you that Calibre is *going to be removed* as part of the upgrade, and no, it's not a case of removing then reinstalling - at least, it's not listed anywhere. That, at least, seems to me to be something of which other Debian Stretch users might want to be aware. I can't speak to Arch Linux, I've never used the distro.


This thread came up in (AFAIR) fourth position in a search of the forum, I think I just searched for 'Debian' but can't be 100% certain. If there's a rule that you don't post to a thread more than a certain number of days after the last message, then I wasn't aware of it.

[eschwartz]

There is no rule about not posting to old threads. But what you aren't supposed to do, is post to a thread that has nothing to do with your problem.
(And that is why there is a warning message for old threads, saying that the thread is old and you should consider whether it would be better to start a new thread... because it "may contain outdated information". But the thread is not auto-locked, because old age isn't an inherent proof of irrelevance.)

Still, mistakes happen, no big deal. Although in future, try to keep in mind that not everything that has to do with Debian necessarily has to do with the same problem.

...

I have no idea why Debian would uninstall a package just because you are doing a dist-upgrade... frankly, I prefer rolling-release distros (like Arch) in part because you don't have to deal with dist-upgrades. Dist-upgrades tend to break things and you ultimately end up backing up all your data and doing a clean reinstall.

But perhaps somehow as a result of aborting a dist-upgrade, you ended up with incompatible packages. At any rate, wget is apparently broken due to mismatched wget and libnettle packages... so something is deeply wrong with your system's dependency tree. There might be more than just wget that broke.

...

Slightly confused now, because `ldd /usr/bin/wget` on my system does not report a dependency on libnettle.so.* not that I think you are lying.

EDIT: This explains a lot, Arch uses the openssl backend and I guess debian uses gnutls which itself links against nettle. So congrats -- you have a borked gnutls on your system.

[brian_meadows]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

<snip>

But perhaps somehow as a result of aborting a dist-upgrade, you ended up with incompatible packages.

<snip>


EDIT: This explains a lot, Arch uses the openssl backend and I guess debian uses gnutls which itself links against nettle. So congrats -- you have a borked gnutls on your system.

No, I didn't abort a dist-upgrade. And I've managed to find a way around the problem, wget now works just fine again under Stretch. So you know what you can do with your congratulations and your big grin, don't you?