Bug#1065117: vitables: fails to start

[David Cooke]

Package: vitables
Version: 3.0.2-4
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: david.m.cooke at gmail.com

Dear Maintainer,

Running vitables (version 3.0.2-4 from sid) results in the following
Python traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/vitables", line 33, in <module>
    sys.exit(load_entry_point('ViTables==3.0.2', 'gui_scripts', 'vitables-
run')())
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/bin/vitables", line 25, in importlib_load_entry_point
    return next(matches).load()
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/importlib/metadata/__init__.py", line 202, in load
    module = import_module(match.group('module'))
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/importlib/__init__.py", line 126, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1204, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1176, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1147, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 690, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 940, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 241, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "/usr/share/vitables/vitables/start.py", line 31, in <module>
    from vitables.vtapp import VTApp
  File "/usr/share/vitables/vitables/vtapp.py", line 43, in <module>
    import vitables.preferences.pluginsloader as pluginsloader
  File "/usr/share/vitables/vitables/preferences/pluginsloader.py", line 26, in
<module>
    import pkg_resources
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3327,
in <module>
    @_call_aside
     ^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3302,
in _call_aside
    f(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3340,
in _initialize_master_working_set
    working_set = WorkingSet._build_master()
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 631, in
_build_master
    ws.require(__requires__)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 968, in
require
    needed = self.resolve(parse_requirements(requirements))
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 829, in
resolve
    dist = self._resolve_dist(
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 870, in
_resolve_dist
    raise DistributionNotFound(req, requirers)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: The 'blosc2>=2.3.0' distribution was not
found and is required by tables


I believe the problem is that when vitables starts to look for plugins,
the pkg_resource module examines the vitable package requirements (contained in
/usr/share/vitables/ViTables-3.0.2.egg-info/requires.txt), which
leads it to the tables package and to its METADATA file
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/tables-3.9.2.dist-info/METADATA
which contains 'Requires-Dist: blosc2 >=2.3.0'.

Now, the tables package (packaged as the Debian packages python3-tables,
python3-tables-lib, python3-tables-data, or source package pytables)
doesn't actually use the Python bindings in the Python package blosc2,
as per its documentation, but only the C library and headers that
package provides (as a convenience). Python3-tables-lib instead is built
directly with libblosc2-2 (which should be fine).

Basically, Debian requirements aren't matching the requirements
declared by Python.  I'll file a separate bug against python3-tables.

(As a side note: this is about the third Python app package I've filed
a bug against for crashing while _starting_ the program.  Please!
Actually try to run things before uploading!!)


-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 6.6.15-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en_US
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages vitables depends on:
ii  python3          3.11.6-1
ii  python3-numexpr  2.9.0-1
ii  python3-numpy    1:1.24.2-2
ii  python3-pyqt5    5.15.10+dfsg-1
ii  python3-qtpy     2.4.1-2
ii  python3-tables   3.9.2-1

vitables recommends no packages.

vitables suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information