Reticulate not detecting python3-venv even though it is installed so cant create virtualenvs

[paulm66]

When I install reticulate (in RStudio 2023.09.1) and try to create a virtualenv I see the following error message:

reticulate::virtualenv_create(envname = "test", python = "/usr/bin/python3.10")
Error: Tools for managing Python virtual environments are not installed.

Install venv with:
$ sudo apt-get install python3-venv

When I try to install the above package Ubuntu (Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS) tells me it is already installed. Digging into the reticulate code it looks like the issue might be this line here:

reticulate/R/virtualenv.R

Line 432 in 99f14f2

if (!any(grepl("^python[0-9.]*-venv$", system("dpkg -l", intern = TRUE))))

The regex uses start and end line characters (^ $) that seem to cause it to fail when detecting the installed package.

My session description is attached below

R version 4.1.2 (2021-11-01)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/blas/libblas.so.3.10.0
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.10.0

locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8
[6] LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.1.2 here_1.0.1 Matrix_1.4-0 rprojroot_2.0.3 tools_4.1.2 rappdirs_0.3.3 Rcpp_1.0.11
[8] reticulate_1.34.0 grid_4.1.2 jsonlite_1.8.7 rlang_1.1.1 png_0.1-8 lattice_0.20-45

[t-kalinowski]

What is the output of system("dpkg -l", intern = TRUE) that you are seeing?

[paulm66]

The output of that is pretty large. I slimmed it down by searching for anything matching venv:

system("dpkg -l *venv*", intern = TRUE)
[1] "Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold"
[2] "| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend"
[3] "|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)"
[4] "||/ Name Version Architecture Description"
[5] "+++-===============-=======================-============-============================================================================="
[6] "ii python3-venv 3.10.6-1~22.04 amd64 venv module for python3 (default python3 version)"
[7] "ii python3.10-venv 3.10.12-1~22.04.2 amd64 Interactive high-level object-oriented language (pyvenv binary, version 3.10)"
[8] "rc python3.8-venv 3.8.10-0ubuntu1~20.04.4 amd64 Interactive high-level object-oriented language (pyvenv binary, version 3.8)"
[9] "rc python3.9-venv 3.9.7-2build1 amd64 Interactive high-level object-oriented language (pyvenv binary, version 3.9)"

[t-kalinowski]

Tentative fix in fix/ubuntu22-venv, can you please confirm it works for you?

remotes::install_github("rstudio/reticulate@fix/ubuntu22-venv")

[paulm66]

That works for me. Output below:

reticulate::virtualenv_create(envname = "test", python = "/usr/bin/python3.10")
Using Python: /usr/bin/python3.10
Creating virtual environment 'test' ...
+ /usr/bin/python3.10 -m venv /home/paul/.virtualenvs/test
Done!
Installing packages: pip, wheel, setuptools
+ /home/paul/.virtualenvs/test/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools
.......
Virtual environment 'test' successfully created.

Thanks!