apport-collect has missing dependence: launchpadlib Python

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

I'm not sure this is a dependency problem.

I've got the same error, but I seem to have python-launchpadlib and python-launchpadlib-toolkit installed - I wonder if the problem here is that python3-launchpadlib is not installable:

dg@major:~/Documents$ dpkg -l \*launchpad\*|cat
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-=====================================-===========================================-============-====================================================================================
ii launchpad-integration 0.1.56 all launchpad integration
ii liblaunchpad-integration-3.0-1 0.1.56 amd64 library for launchpad integration
ii liblaunchpad-integration-cil-dev 0.1.56 amd64 CLI bindings for liblaunchpad-integration - development package
ii liblaunchpad-integration-common 0.1.56 all library for launchpad integration common data
un liblaunchpad-integration0 <none> (no description available)
ii liblaunchpad-integration1 0.1.56 amd64 library for launchpad integration
un liblaunchpad-integration1-cil <none> (no description available)
ii liblaunchpad-integration1.0-cil 0.1.56 amd64 CLI bindings for liblaunchpad-integration
ii python-launchpad-integration 0.1.56 amd64 library for launchpad integration
un python-launchpad-integration-dbg <none> (no description available)
ii python-launchpadlib 1.9.12-2 all Launchpad web services client library
ii python-launchpadlib-toolkit 2.1 all convenience library for launchpadlib
un python3-launchpadlib <none> (no description available)
dg@major:~/Documents$ sudo apt-get install python3-launchpadlib
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package python3-launchpadlib is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'python3-launchpadlib' has no installation candidate

apport (2.2.3-0ubuntu1) quantal; urgency=low

....

  * debian/control: Drop python-launchpadlib from Depends to Suggests for
    python-apport, too.

@Dave you probably upgraded from a previous release of Ubuntu while this was reported by someone who just installed quantal.

@Brian Actually, this is a fresh install (new SSD about a month ago) from a QQ Kubuntu Alpha cd.

This was a deliberate decision from the foundations team. python-launchpadlib is not yet available for python 3, so apport-collect has to use python 2 still. But as apport-collect is not required for core desktop operations, only for the rather advanced task (from the perspective of a user of a stable release) of following up to Launchpad bug reports, we just added the error message which points out that you need to install it manually. See the changelog:

apport (2.2.1-0ubuntu1) quantal; urgency=low
[...]
  * Move to Python 3, except for the parts that need python-launchpadlib
    (which is not yet available for Python 3):
    - debian/control: Add python3-problem-report and python3-apport packages.
    - debian/control: Switch build and binary dependencies to Python 3
      equivalents, except for apport-retrace.
    - debian/rules: Override dh_auto_* to also handle python3-* packages (see
      Debian #597105).
    - debian/rules: Run test suite with Python 3.
    - debian/rules: Switch hashbang line of apport-retrace back to Python 2.
    - Move /etc/apport/crashdb.conf from python-apport to apport, and
      recommend apport from both python{,3}-apport.
  * bin/apport-bug: Force running with python 2 when being invoked as
    apport-collect, and add a check/error message that you need to install
    python-apport to use this.
[...]

For someone who wants to use apport-collect, is there any workaround?

Workaround for what? Just install python-launchpadlib and it will work.

Sorry, I meant apport-cli, not apport-collect. That's becuase I got the same error noted in the bug description when I ran the command: apport-cli -u <bug-number>

I have python-launchpadlib already installed and apport-collect worked fine for me when I tried it. Thanks.

As far as I understand from the man pages, the two commands are equivalent.

Marwan Tanager [2013-01-08 8:13 -0000]:
> As far as I understand from the man pages, the two commands are
> equivalent.

Ah, not in Ubuntu I'm afraid as apport-cli uses Python 3. You have to
use apport-collect.
--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

Why is this a wontFix?!?!?

If apport-collect depends on a package which is not installed, then when trying to run it, it should give this warning:

$ apport-collect
You need to run 'sudo apt-get install python-apport' for apport-collect to work.

Instead it says:
$ apport-collect 1250488
ERROR: The launchpadlib Python module is not installed. This functionality is not available.

and you have to figure out what the hell you need to install. That's a bug.

Actually it's not python-apport, it's already installed. It's something else that is missing.

matteo, if python-apport is installed, then python-launchpadlib should be as well as that is a strict dependency. Indeed the current version gives you an error message as you suggested:

   if ! python -c 'import apport' 2>/dev/null; then
        echo "You need to run 'sudo apt-get install python-apport' for apport-collect to work." >&2

So if you still get that error, then something else is wrong on your system. Please give me the output of

  python -c 'import apport'

Thanks!