Python-tk package not recognized in Python 2.7.3 [closed]

Question

When I run the following code:

import Tkinter

I get this error message:

>>> import Tkinter
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/Tkinter.py", line 42, in <module>
    raise ImportError, str(msg) + ', please install the python-tk package'
ImportError: /usr/lib/libtk8.5.so.0: invalid ELF header, please install the python-tk package

however, python-tk is installed.

$ sudo apt-get install python-tk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
python-tk is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Looking into why this is failing, I looked at Tkinter.py. This is the line that is failing.

try:
    import _tkinter
except ImportError, msg:
    raise ImportError, str(msg) + ', please install the python-tk package'

Is this a path problem? Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

It seems like maybe that library is corrupted. Try sudo apt-get remove python-tk, then sudo apt-get clean so that you will re-download the package, sudo apt-get install python-tk, and then try importing again. Another possibility is that you've somehow got your apt/sources.list messed up, and you've installed a library that is for the wrong platform.

If it is still not working after you try the above, leave a comment on this answer.

Answer 2

I'm not sure what the problem was, but it's been resolved. My VM got corrupted during a VMware Player update, so I had to reinstall. After the fresh install, things are working as they should. Thanks for the help.