During installation: No module named 'encodings'

[LukasvdWiel]

Dear more experienced user of Julia,

I work on a cluster where one of the users wants to run Julia software that uses the PyCall en PyPlot packages.
We have Python 3.12.4, with MatPlotLib.

I have Julia 1.11.1, and try to follow the documentation on PyPlot's github page to install it. However, I fail to do so, on the eventual error:

Fatal Python error: init_fs_encoding: failed to get the Python codec of the filesystem encoding
Python runtime state: core initialized
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'

There appears to be no Python module called 'encodings', according to pip search

My complete error message is:

julia> Pkg.add("PyPlot")
[a lot of depenced that actually do work]
Precompiling project...
  ✗ PyPlot
  15 dependencies successfully precompiled in 13 seconds. 22 already precompiled.
  1 dependency errored.
  For a report of the errors see `julia> err`. To retry use `pkg> precompile`

julia> err
PkgPrecompileError: The following 1 direct dependency failed to precompile:

PyPlot 

Failed to precompile PyPlot [d330b81b-6aea-500a-939a-2ce795aea3ee] to "/eejit/home/lukas/.julia/compiled/v1.11/PyPlot/jl_dBQBnk".
Python path configuration:
  PYTHONHOME = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install:/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install'
  PYTHONPATH = (not set)
  program name = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/bin/python3'
  isolated = 0
  environment = 1
  user site = 1
  import site = 1
  sys._base_executable = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/bin/python3'
  sys.base_prefix = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install'
  sys.base_exec_prefix = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install'
  sys.platlibdir = 'lib64'
  sys.executable = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/bin/python3'
  sys.prefix = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install'
  sys.exec_prefix = '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install'
  sys.path = [
    '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/lib64/python39.zip',
    '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/lib64/python3.9',
    '/trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/lib64/python3.9/lib-dynload',
  ]
Fatal Python error: init_fs_encoding: failed to get the Python codec of the filesystem encoding
Python runtime state: core initialized
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'

Current thread 0x00001555552d10c0 (most recent call first):
<no Python frame

Is this 'encodings' module something I should install outside of the package management system and link to with PYTHONPATH, or so?

Does anybody know what is going wrong / what I am doing wrong?

Thanks a lot!

Lukas

[stevengj]

The encodings module is part of the Python standard library, so probably this means that there is something wrong with your Python installation. See e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38132755/importerror-no-module-named-encodings and many similar discussions online.

For example, what happens if you run /trinity/opt/apps/development/dev2024/install/bin/python3 and type import encodings at the Python prompt?