ImportError: No module named dbus

I was trying to update my Python and messed up my whole system.

I am currently now able to start my Software Centre. I tried Googling multiple fixes but nothing helped. My Software Centre can't start.

When I try starting it up, this error shows:

astephen@localhost:/usr/bin$ ./software-centerGtk-Message: Failed to load module "gtk-vector-screenshot"
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./software-center", line 36, in <module>
from softwarecenter.utils import (
File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/utils.py", line 19, in <module>
import dbus
ImportError: No module named dbus

I tried reinstalling dbus using:

apt-get install --reinstall dbus

But it did not help.

astephen@localhost:/usr/bin$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall dbusReading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not      upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/231 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 676272 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../dbus_1.6.18-0ubuntu4.3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking dbus (1.6.18-0ubuntu4.3) over (1.6.18-0ubuntu4.3) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-16) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up dbus (1.6.18-0ubuntu4.3) ...

Solution 1:

A quick search reveals that the name of the Debian package for the Python DBUS module is called python-dbus (or python3-dbus). Why it isn't available despite being an explicit dependency of the software-center package is beyond me. You should re-install the two packages in case they were corrupted:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall software-center python-dbus

Solution 2:

Ok, it's been two years since that question was asked, but this didn't stop me to waste my time on the same problem.

pip3 install dbus-python

made me just run into some problems like:

... 
checking python extra linking flags... -Xlinker -export-dynamic -Wl,-O1 -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions
  checking consistency of all components of python development environment... no
  configure: error: in `/tmp/pip-build-407jqhld/dbus-python/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.7':
  configure: error:
    Could not link test program to Python. Maybe the main Python library has been
    installed in some non-standard library path. If so, pass it to configure,
    via the LIBS environment variable.
    Example: ./configure LIBS="-L/usr/non-standard-path/python/lib"
    ============================================================================
     ERROR!
     You probably have to install the development version of the Python package
     for your distribution.  The exact name of this package varies among them.
    ============================================================================

  See `config.log' for more details
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
    File "/tmp/pip-build-407jqhld/dbus-python/setup.py", line 111, in <module>
      tests_require=['tap.py'],
    File "/home/schwaigeradm/.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 145, in setup
      return distutils.core.setup(**attrs)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/distutils/core.py", line 148, in setup
      dist.run_commands()
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/distutils/dist.py", line 966, in run_commands
      self.run_command(cmd)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/distutils/dist.py", line 985, in run_command
      cmd_obj.run()
    File "/home/schwaigeradm/.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/wheel/bdist_wheel.py", line 192, in run
      self.run_command('build')
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/distutils/cmd.py", line 313, in run_command
      self.distribution.run_command(command)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/distutils/dist.py", line 985, in run_command
      cmd_obj.run()
    File "/tmp/pip-build-407jqhld/dbus-python/setup.py", line 64, in run
      cwd=builddir)
    File "/usr/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py", line 347, in check_call
      raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
  subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/tmp/pip-build-407jqhld/dbus-python/configure', '--disable-maintainer-mode', 'PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3', '--prefix=/tmp/pip-build-407jqhld/dbus-python/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.7/prefix']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

  ----------------------------------------
  Failed building wheel for dbus-python
  Running setup.py clean for dbus-python
Failed to build dbus-python

Installing or re-installing of any of my current software didn't help. But I realized it's a python3.7 issue:

As in python2.7 it was possible to add import dbus, but in pyhon3.7 it failed with the same error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
    import dbus
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/__init__.py", line 77, in <module>
    import dbus.types as types
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/types.py", line 6, in <module>
    from _dbus_bindings import (
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_dbus_bindings'

The solution is rather easy:

sudo apt-get install python3.7-dev
pip3 install dbus-python