smi is not a recognised Open Babel format

[yurivict]

This script fails:

import pybel
mymol=pybel.readstring('smi','CCOC(=O)C')
mymol.addh()
mymol.make3D()
print mymol.write(format='mol2')

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "x.py", line 3, in <module>
    mymol=pybel.readstring('smi','CCOC(=O)C') 
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pybel.py", line 199, in readstring
    raise ValueError("%s is not a recognised Open Babel format" % format)
ValueError: smi is not a recognised Open Babel format

But when queried, it says that smi is supported:

import pybel
print sorted(pybel.informats)

['CONFIG', 'CONTCAR', 'CONTFF', 'HISTORY', 'MDFF', 'POSCAR', 'POSFF', 'VASP', 'abinit', 'acesout', 'acr', 'adfout', 'alc', 'aoforce', 'arc', 'axsf', 'bgf', 'box', 'bs', 'c09out', 'c3d1', 'c3d2', 'caccrt', 'can', 'car', 'castep', 'ccc', 'cdjson', 'cdx', 'cdxml', 'cif', 'ck', 'cml', 'cmlr', 'crk2d', 'crk3d', 'ct', 'cub', 'cube', 'dallog', 'dalmol', 'dat', 'dmol', 'dx', 'ent', 'exyz', 'fa', 'fasta', 'fch', 'fchk', 'fck', 'feat', 'fhiaims', 'fract', 'fs', 'fsa', 'g03', 'g09', 'g92', 'g94', 'g98', 'gal', 'gam', 'gamess', 'gamin', 'gamout', 'got', 'gpr', 'gro', 'gukin', 'gukout', 'gzmat', 'hin', 'inchi', 'inp', 'ins', 'jin', 'jout', 'log', 'lpmd', 'mcdl', 'mcif', 'mdl', 'ml2', 'mmcif', 'mmd', 'mmod', 'mol', 'mol2', 'mold', 'molden', 'molf', 'moo', 'mop', 'mopcrt', 'mopin', 'mopout', 'mpc', 'mpo', 'mpqc', 'mrv', 'msi', 'nwo', 'orca', 'out', 'outmol', 'output', 'pc', 'pcjson', 'pcm', 'pdb', 'pdbqt', 'png', 'pos', 'pqr', 'pqs', 'prep', 'pwscf', 'qcout', 'res', 'rsmi', 'rxn', 'sd', 'sdf', 'siesta', 'smi', 'smiles', 'smy', 'sy2', 't41', 'tdd', 'text', 'therm', 'tmol', 'txt', 'txyz', 'unixyz', 'vmol', 'xml', 'xsf', 'xyz', 'yob']

Downstream FreeBSD bug report: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=194599

Version 2.4.1 on FreeBSD 11.2 installed from the port.

[andizuend]

Related to above, I received the same ValueError after installing openbabel/pybel Python bindings using an unofficial .whl from https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#openbabel on a Windows (11) machine (Python 3.9; pip install openbabel did not work). The apparent reason for the pybel ValueError was that after installing openbabel 3.1.1 on Windows (GUI version), there is an environment variable BABEL_DATADIR set under the Windows environment variables. Deleting or renaming that variable entry solved the "ValueError: smi is not a recognised Open Babel format" issue.