googletrans stopped working with error 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'group'

Question

Update 06.12.20: A new 'official' alpha version of googletrans with a fix was released

Install the alpha version like this:

pip install googletrans==3.1.0a0

Translation example:

translator = Translator()
translation = translator.translate("Der Himmel ist blau und ich mag Bananen", dest='en')
print(translation.text)
#output: 'The sky is blue and I like bananas'

In case it does not work, try to specify the service url like this:

from googletrans import Translator
translator = Translator(service_urls=['translate.googleapis.com'])
translator.translate("Der Himmel ist blau und ich mag Bananen", dest='en')

See the discussion here for details and updates: https://github.com/ssut/py-googletrans/pull/237

Update 10.12.20: Another fix was released

As pointed out by @DesiKeki and @Ahmed Breem, there is another fix which seems to work for several people:

pip install googletrans==4.0.0-rc1

Github discussion here: https://github.com/ssut/py-googletrans/issues/234#issuecomment-742460612

In case the fixes above don't work for you

If the above doesn't work for you, google_trans_new seems to be a good alternative that works for some people. It's unclear why the fix above works for some and doesn't for others. See details on installation and usage here: https://github.com/lushan88a/google_trans_new

#pip install google_trans_new

from google_trans_new import google_translator  
translator = google_translator()  
translate_text = translator.translate('สวัสดีจีน',lang_tgt='en')  
print(translate_text)
#output: Hello china

Update 01/12/2020: This issue re-emerged lately, (apparently) caused once again by some changes on the Google translation API.

A solution is being discussed (again) in this Github issue. Although there is not a definitive solution yet a Pull Request seem to be solving the problem: https://github.com/ssut/py-googletrans/pull/237.

While we wait for it to be approved it can be installed like this:

$ pip uninstall googletrans
$ git clone https://github.com/alainrouillon/py-googletrans.git
$ cd ./py-googletrans
$ git checkout origin/feature/enhance-use-of-direct-api
$ python setup.py install

Original Answer:

Apparently it's a recent and widespread problem on Google's side. Quoting various Github discussions, it happens when Google sends you directly the raw token.

It's being discussed right now and there is already a pull request to fix it, so it should be resolved in the next few days.

For reference, see:

https://github.com/ssut/py-googletrans/issues/48 <-- exact same problem reported on the Github repo https://github.com/pndurette/gTTS/issues/60 <-- seemingly same problem on a text-to-speech library https://github.com/ssut/py-googletrans/pull/78 <-- pull request to fix the issue

To apply this patch (without waiting for the pull request to be accepted) simply install the library from the forked repo https://github.com/BoseCorp/py-googletrans.git (uninstall the official library first):

$ pip uninstall googletrans
$ git clone https://github.com/BoseCorp/py-googletrans.git
$ cd ./py-googletrans
$ python setup.py install

You can clone it anywhere on your system and install it globally or while inside a virtualenv.

Try google_trans_new. It solved the problem for me https://github.com/lushan88a/google_trans_new

pip install google_trans_new

from google_trans_new import google_translator  
  
translator = google_translator()  
translate_text = translator.translate('Hola mundo!', lang_src='es', lang_tgt='en')  
print(translate_text)
-> Hello world!

Update 10.12.20: New Alpha Version Release (Stable Release Candidate) is released: 4.0.0-rc1

It can be installed as follows:

pip install googletrans==4.0.0-rc1

Usage:

translation = translator.translate('이 문장은 한글로 쓰여졌습니다.', dest='en')
print(translation.text)
>>This sentence is written in Korean.
detected_lang = translator.detect('mein english me hindi likh raha hoon')
print(detected_lang)
>>Detected(lang=hi, confidence=None)
detected_lang = translator.detect('이 문장은 한글로 쓰여졌습니다.')
print(detected_lang)
>>Detected(lang=ko, confidence=None)