`No module named 'RPi'` on RPi 0 W and 8.57.0

[ezio-melotti]

Board Name

Raspberry Pi 0 W

Description

I recently upgraded Adafruit-Blinka to 8.58.1 on a Raspberry Pi 0 W, and when I tried to run import board I got:

>>> import board
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/board.py", line 51, in <module>
    from adafruit_blinka.board.raspberrypi.raspi_40pin import *
  File "venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/board/raspberrypi/raspi_40pin.py", line 6, in <module>
    from adafruit_blinka.microcontroller.bcm283x import pin
  File "venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/microcontroller/bcm283x/pin.py", line 7, in <module>
    from adafruit_blinka.microcontroller.generic_linux.rpi_gpio_pin import Pin
  File "venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/adafruit_blinka/microcontroller/generic_linux/rpi_gpio_pin.py", line 6, in <module>
    from RPi import GPIO
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'RPi'
>>> 

I tried downgrading with pip install 'Adafruit-Blinka==8.57.0' but still got the same error.

I downgraded further to 8.56.0 with pip install 'Adafruit-Blinka==8.56.0' and the import works fine:

>>> import board
>>> 

While installing 8.56.0 I noticed:

...
Collecting RPi.GPIO (from Adafruit-Blinka==8.56.0)
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/rpi-gpio/RPi.GPIO-0.7.1-cp39-cp39-linux_armv6l.whl (66 kB)
Collecting rpi-ws281x>=4.0.0 (from Adafruit-Blinka==8.56.0)
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/rpi-ws281x/rpi_ws281x-5.0.0-cp39-cp39-linux_armv6l.whl (119 kB)
...
Successfully installed Adafruit-Blinka-8.56.0 RPi.GPIO-0.7.1 rpi-ws281x-5.0.0

whereas for later versions, RPi.GPIO doesn't appear to get installed automatically as a dependency.

This is also confirmed by checking that they are installed for 8.56.0 but they are missing for later versions:

$ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.56.0
RPi.GPIO                                 0.7.1
rpi-ws281x                               5.0.0

[makermelissa]

Hopefully #972 fixes this for you as it goes closer to the old way by using requirements.txt once again. In the meantime, you can follow this guide to get it installed: https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/installing-circuitpython-on-raspberry-pi

[Firesphere]

Fairly sure this is related to #978 I've encountered the same problem on multiple Pis. So far, my solution has been to set my requirements to blinka <= 8.50, I'm being cautious here with the version, but this is the version I know for sure works.

[makermelissa]

#972 caused a number of issues including #978. #981 reverts it back to before #972, so this issue still needs looking at.

[ezio-melotti]

I confirm that 8.61.0 works on the RPi 0 W.

Edit: it actually doesn't work, see my next message.

[makermelissa]

Awesome!

[ezio-melotti]

@makermelissa, I tried a fresh install on a Raspberry Pi Zero W of Adafruit-Blinka 8.64.0 and saw the same error again. I then tried to install all the previous versions and found out that the last version to pull RPi.GPIO was actually 8.58.0. None of the following versions install it (8.60.0 tries to install it, but the whole installation fails because of lgpio).

(venv) $ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.64.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml

(venv) $ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.63.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml

(venv) $ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.62.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml

(venv) $ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.61.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml

(venv) $ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.59.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml

(venv) $ list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.58.0
RPi.GPIO                                 0.7.1
rpi-ws281x                               5.0.0
(venv) $ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          RPi.GPIO, rpi_ws281x, sysv_ipc, toml

Also note that upgrading from 8.58.0 to 8.64.0 doesn't remove RPi.GPIO from the dependencies. This might be why I mistakenly reported that 8.61.0 worked in my previous message.

I also looked at both setup.py and .github/workflows/release.yml and didn't see any change that might explain the change of behavior.

I can confirm that the following bit of code is correct:

Adafruit_Blinka/setup.py

Lines 37 to 61 in d8228db

	if os.path.exists("/proc/device-tree/compatible"):
	with open("/proc/device-tree/compatible", "rb") as f:
	compat = f.read()
	# Jetson Nano, TX2, Xavier, etc
	if b"nvidia,tegra" in compat:
	board_reqs = ["Jetson.GPIO"]
	# Pi 5 and Earlier
	elif (
	b"brcm,bcm2835" in compat
	or b"brcm,bcm2836" in compat
	or b"brcm,bcm2837" in compat
	or b"brcm,bcm2838" in compat
	or b"brcm,bcm2711" in compat
	or b"brcm,bcm2712" in compat
	):
	board_reqs = [
	"rpi_ws281x>=4.0.0",
	"lgpio;python_version<'3.13'",
	"RPi.GPIO",
	"Adafruit-Blinka-Raspberry-Pi5-Neopixel",
	]
	raspberry_pi = True
	# BeagleBone Black, Green, PocketBeagle, BeagleBone AI, etc.
	elif b"ti,am335x" in compat:
	board_reqs = ["Adafruit_BBIO"]

(venv) $ python3
Python 3.9.2 (default, Mar 20 2025, 22:21:41) 
[GCC 10.2.1 20210110] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> with open("/proc/device-tree/compatible", "rb") as f:
...     compat = f.read()
... 
>>> compat
b'raspberrypi,model-zero-w\x00brcm,bcm2835\x00'
>>> b"brcm,bcm2835" in compat
True
>>> 

board_reqs should include RPi.GPIO, but perhaps the setup.py is not executed at all when installing the wheel for 8.59.0+.

If you can confirm that this is not the intended behavior feel free to reopen this issue or let me know if you'd rather have me create a new one.

[ezio-melotti]

8.65.0 was released yesterday and it includes #1002, but RPi.GPIO is still not installed:

$ pip list | grep -i 'rpi\|blinka'
Adafruit-Blinka                          8.65.0
$ pip show Adafruit-Blinka | grep Requires
Requires: adafruit-circuitpython-typing, Adafruit-PlatformDetect, Adafruit-PureIO, binho-host-adapter, pyftdi,
          sysv_ipc, toml