Can't install pocketsphix (with pip install pocketsphix)

Question

I'm trying to create a speech to text Python program which uses pocketsphix voice recognition, and I'm getting an error when trying to install it. I googled and searched for the solution but couldn't find one that works so I'm posting here.

Here is the error:

C:\Users\david>pip install pocketsphinx
Collecting pocketsphinx
  Using cached pocketsphinx-5.0.2.tar.gz (34.2 MB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [33 lines of output]
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 353, in <module>
          main()
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 335, in main
          json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 112, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          backend = _build_backend()
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 77, in _build_backend
          obj = import_module(mod_path)
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 90, in import_module
          return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1310, in _find_and_load_unlocked
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1387, in _gcd_import
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1360, in _find_and_load
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1331, in _find_and_load_unlocked
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 935, in _load_unlocked
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 994, in exec_module
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-pi7v5za1\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\__init__.py", line 16, in <module>
          import setuptools.version
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-pi7v5za1\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\version.py", line 1, in <module>
          import pkg_resources
        File "C:\Users\david\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-pi7v5za1\overlay\Lib\site-packages\pkg_resources\__init__.py", line 2191, in <module>
          register_finder(pkgutil.ImpImporter, find_on_path)
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      AttributeError: module 'pkgutil' has no attribute 'ImpImporter'. Did you mean: 'zipimporter'?
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> See above for output.

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

Hopefully somebody alredy encountered this problem and knows the fix. Thank you in advance.

Tried installing pocketsphinx, expected a clean install with no problems.

Answer 1

TL;DR this is fixed in PocketSphinx 5.0.3, now on PyPI.

This is because PocketSphinx required an older version of setuptools which no longer worked with Python 3.12. The reason for doing this was, in turn, because scikit-build could not support the new standard for editable installs used by recent setuptools (https://peps.python.org/pep-0660/)

The problem was fixed by switching to scikit-build-core, which I highly recommend to anyone currently using scikit-build.