The salt-api service fails to start with an error: AttributeError: module 'importlib_metadata' has no attribute 'version'

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Environment

SUSE Manager 4.3.7

Situation

The salt-api service fails to start with:

Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: import salt.config
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/config/__init__.py", line 22, in <module>
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: import salt.utils.network
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/utils/network.py", line 26, in <module>
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: from salt._compat import ipaddress
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/salt/_compat.py", line 20, in <module>
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: for part in importlib_metadata.version("importlib_metadata").split(".")
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager salt-api[10577]: AttributeError: module 'importlib_metadata' has no attribute 'version'
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager systemd[1]: salt-api.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Sep 27 09:58:31 susemanager systemd[1]: salt-api.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Resolution

Un-install the pip installed python module "importlib-metadata" and install the package version "python3-importlib-metadata":

pip uninstall importlib-metadata
zypper in python3-importlib-metadata

Cause

Refrain from installing pip (Python Package Installer) modules on a SUSE Manager server as this can result in version mismatches resulting in attribute errors.

Disclaimer

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