[GNC] GNUCash Python bindings not working standalone on debian 13

[Jon Schewe]

You need to realize that installing an application via flatpak is not
the same as installing the application with apt natively in the system.
The application is running inside a sandbox or container that limits
access to the system and to it.

When GnuCash is installed via flatpak there isn't a way to access the
GnuCash libraries inside the flatpak container. I have the same issue.
I install the gnucash via apt for the bindings and use the flatpak
version for using the GUI. I haven't run into issues with the version
differences as the API seems to be fairly stable.
The libraries are actually inside the flatpak container, I just haven't
found a way to write something that runs inside the container to
reference them.

On Thu, 2026-02-12 at 17:56 +0000, jojo2357 via gnucash-user wrote:
> First post here, no idea if I am doing this right...
> 
> Issue: gnucash python bindings cannot be used when installed via the
> steps in the wiki
> 
> Steps to repro:
> 
> 
> -   Clean debian 13 install
> -   # apt install python3-gnucash
> -   $ python3
> -   >>> import gnucash
> 
> 
> At this point i expect to be off to the races, but instead i get an
> error:
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<python-input-0>", line 1, in <module>
>     import gnucash
>   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnucash/__init__.py", line 6,
> in <module>
>     from gnucash.gnucash_core import *
>   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnucash/gnucash_core.py", line
> 165, in <module>
>     from gnucash import gnucash_core_c
>   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnucash/gnucash_core_c.py,
> line 10, in <module>
>     from . import _gnucash_core_c
> ImportError: libgnc-app-utils.so: cannot open shared object file: No
> such file or directory
> 
> Installing the gnucash apt package fixes the error, but since apt is
> not the fastest to update, I have gnucash installed via flatpak on my
> main setup. 
> 
> Fixes: IMO either the wiki should make mention of the soft dep, or
> the apt package should pick out whatever dependencies it needs so
> that the bindings can be installed standalone.