bzr / python installation fubar

[Hal Burgiss]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 11:52:39AM -0400, Hal Burgiss wrote:
> This probably is not a bzr issue per se, but I was hoping someone here
> might have some helpful advice. The problem, I think, is something is
> screwed up with the python installation on an Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server. The system
> has all updates applied. It has been upgraded from a CentOs server, and a
> previous Ubuntu 6.06 server, so there is a chance something lingers from
> previous installations (but I can't find it if so).
> 
> As far as I can tell at this point, it only seems to effect bzr (but
> probably because there isn't much else python related going on). 
> 
> I have uninstalled, purged, reinstalled every python related package I could
> find. This does not seem to effect anything. Multiple times.
> 
> Errors from an attempted checkout from one system to another:
> 
> bzr: ERROR: exceptions.ImportError: No module named unicodedata                                        


As a follow up for anyone interested in this, I just uninstalled
+purged every python related package I could find. There was some
stuff left in /usr/lib/python2*, so I manually wiped those.

I then started re-installing. This went well, no error messages, which
was promising. Before just re-installing some of this stuff would
generate wierd error messages.

I then tried the same bzr checkout as before and got the same
steenkin' error! I noticed though that the checkout makes it through
a handful of files and always craps out at the exact same point, a
bash script. I started thinking this is odd that we get part way into
this and python complains about loading a module mid-stream. So I
removed that one file from bzr repository on the mother ship, did a
commit, wiped the previous checkout, and redid it. And it worked! Not
sure why but it went without error. This was at least my 20th attempt
on this amid much uninstall/reinstall/frustration, so I am dancing at
this point. 

So I am thinking maybe the repository was ~corrupt this whole time and
that's what started a trail of headaches and not the python
installtion on the offending system? Is that possible? But then again,
I did an identical checkout to a different Ubuntu 8.04 installation
Friday, and had no trouble whatsoever. Curious. I am new at bzr and I
guess I could have done something really stupid somewhere along the
line. Or maybe its random chaos, and I am momentarily lucky. 

Any thoughts?

-- 
Hal