Kicad complains it cannot find wxWidgets but it actually finds them

Software
1

Here my kicad version info:

Application: KiCad PCB Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 9.0.2-9.0.2-0~ubuntu24.10.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.6
	FreeType 2.13.3
	HarfBuzz 9.0.0
	FontConfig 2.15.0
	libcurl/8.12.1 OpenSSL/3.4.1 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.6 libidn2/2.3.8 libpsl/0.21.2 libssh2/1.11.1 nghttp2/1.64.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.6.9

Platform: Ubuntu 25.04, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, ubuntu, x11
OpenGL: NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080/PCIe/SSE2, 4.6.0 NVIDIA 570.133.07

Build Info:
	Date: May  7 2025 21:52:02
	wxWidgets: 3.2.5 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.83.0
	OCC: 7.8.1
	Curl: 8.9.1
	ngspice: 43
	Compiler: GCC 14.2.0 with C++ ABI 1019
	KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale: 
	Lang: en_GB
	Enc: UTF-8
	Num: 1,234.5
	Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)

It’s running on Ubuntu 24.10.
As you can see it found the wxWidgets and I checked they work.

In Kicad I checked the Python path is correct (/usr/bin/python3) then I issued:

$ which python3
/usr/bin/python3
$ python3
Python 3.13.3 (main, Apr  8 2025, 19:55:40) [GCC 14.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import wx
>>> print(wx.version())
4.2.2 gtk3 (phoenix) wxWidgets 3.2.6

but when I run Kicad it complains it cannot find wxWidgets:

Could not determine wxWidgets version. Python plugins will not be available.

sys.version: ‘3.12.7 (main, Feb 4 2025, 14:46:03) [GCC 14.2.0]’
wx.version(): ‘’

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 11, in
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/wx/init.py”, line 17, in
from wx.core import *
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/wx/core.py”, line 12, in
from ._core import *
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘wx._core’

How is it possible? It seems to me a contradiction.
I saw this thread but I didn’t find a solution there.

2

Bump! I have the same issue on Ubuntu 25.10. It warns that plugins won’t work, but they seem to in my meager testing.
Rob

3

Oops: I mostly guessed wrong apparently. See marekr’s comment below.

KiCad does not use the default / external python, but it uses a python version that is bundled within KiCad. My guess is this also runs in a separate environment, and thus your system settings are (probably) not visible to it.

But this guess is at the limit of my knowledge, I don’t have a direct fix.

Again guessing… If the “python bundled with KiCad” throws an error like this, then maybe there is an error in the packaging for KiCad on Ubuntu.

4

Kicad doesn’t bundle python on Linux, except in flatpack

In the initial post, there may be an error due to

Screenshot_20250617-145703
Screenshot_20250617-1457031008×2244 320 KB

The visible mismatch in python versions for some reason on their system. The kicad version should match the system one.

5

How can “The kicad version should match the system one”? What action should I take?

6

What does this command show?

ldd /usr/bin/pcbnew | grep python
7

You have a Ubuntu 24.10.1 kicad package installed on Ubuntu 25.04. Did you update the ppa line to plucky?

8

Why does it say Ubuntu 25.04 if you say it’s running on Ubuntu 24.10?

9 
$ ldd /usr/bin/pcbnew | grep python
	libpython3.13.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpython3.13.so.1.0 (0x00007e7f02000000)

Here the updated information:

Application: KiCad PCB Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 9.0.3-9.0.3-0~ubuntu25.04.1, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.6
FreeType 2.13.3
HarfBuzz 10.2.0
FontConfig 2.15.0
libcurl/8.12.1 OpenSSL/3.4.1 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.6 libidn2/2.3.8 libpsl/0.21.2 libssh2/1.11.1 nghttp2/1.64.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.6.9

Platform: Ubuntu 25.04, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, ubuntu, x11
OpenGL: NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080/PCIe/SSE2, 4.6.0 NVIDIA 570.169

Build Info:
Date: Jul 8 2025 13:03:19
wxWidgets: 3.2.6 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.83.0
OCC: 7.8.1
Curl: 8.12.1
ngspice: 44.2
Compiler: GCC 14.2.0 with C++ ABI 1019
KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale:
Lang: en_GB
Enc: UTF-8
Num: 1,234.5
Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)

$ cat /etc/lsb-release 
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=25.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=plucky
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 25.04"

$ python3 --version
Python 3.13.3
10

But now the initial issue seems fixed. Perhaps there was a mis-alignment between updates.