Search plugins stop working after some time

[Poldraunic-zz]

Please provide the following information

qBittorrent version and Operating System

qBittorrent: 4.1.5 (64 bit)
OS: Windows 10

What is the problem

After installing and using search plugins they stop working after some time.

What is the expected behavior

They do not stop working out of blue.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install plugins.
2. Use them for some time.
3. Eventually they break.

Extra info(if any)

Plugins are installed and I was using them just couple of days ago. Today when I click on Search tab I get default message in lines of "There aren't any search plugins installed."
If I try to forcefully install one program will freeze for a while and fail to install search plugin. If I click "Check for updates" I get a lot of messages saying "Couldn't update %pluginname% search engine plugin. Plugin is not supported". Following messages are in Execution Log after trying to update plugins

5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin jackett is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin piratebay is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin limetorrents is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin rarbg is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin eztv is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin torlock is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin btdb is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin legittorrents is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin zooqle is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin leetx is not supported.
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "zooqle" is outdated, updating to version 1.13
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "torlock" is outdated, updating to version 2.1
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "rarbg" is outdated, updating to version 2.10
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "piratebay" is outdated, updating to version 2.20
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "limetorrents" is outdated, updating to version 4.1
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "legittorrents" is outdated, updating to version 2.3
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "leetx" is outdated, updating to version 2.0
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "jackett" is outdated, updating to version 3.2
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "eztv" is outdated, updating to version 1.10
5/2/2019 1:29 PM - Plugin "btdb" is outdated, updating to version 1.10

I had this problem before, removing search engine related files from %appdata% folder solved the issue.

[njscorpion]

Same with me! trying to update gives me not supported errors!

[njscorpion]

I was able to fix this on my system, my configuration:
Windows 10 Ent 1903.
qBittorrent (qBT) version 4.1.5.

All good!
I did a re-installation of system about month back, after which when installed qBT it was working fine, restarted qBT after restoring my old backup, qBT requested to install Python (3.6.6 i think) which i did. Every thing was working perfectly till now.

The start of the problem!
Then the problem started when I installed python again as some other scripts (not written by me i am not a python developer) started breaking so i installed Python 3.7.3 x64, it didn't solve anything so uninstalled it and installed Python 3.7.3 x86 no luck! again uninstalled reinstalled Python 2.7.16 x86 and set the path variable still no go. Now noticed something wired happening whenever python (only the command "python" or "python3") is executed from cmd line it opened windows store!

The solution:

1. uninstall all python installation.
2. in my case go to "C:\Users<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" search for python.exe and python3.exe i found files including sub folders all 0kb deleted them all. The above path is part of path variable.
3. reboot
4. clear registry.
5. open command prompt type "python" hit enter again type in "python3" hit enter you should get an error message like 'python' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
   operable program or batch file.
6. install python 2 or 3 (x86), customize the installation path to "c:\python2" or "c:\python3" make sure its 32 bit installer.
7. add the following environment variables to PATH:
   ;C:\PythonX; C:\PythonX\Scripts
   X is your version of python
8. once again check if "C:\Users<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" has any python.exe or python3.exe if yes delete them.
9. open command prompt type python hit enter.
   you should get

Python 2.7.16 (v2.7.16:413a49145e, Mar  4 2019, 01:30:55) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

10. restart you pc.
11. open qbt now the search should be working.

Hope it helps
Thanks and Regards.

[Poldraunic-zz]

Ah right, I've been messing around lately with Python. That makes sense: it defaulted to Python 3.

What is qBittorrent Team stance on migrating to Python 3 at this point?

As a quick fix for this problem, it would be good to make some sane error messages regarding installed version of Python.

[thalieht]

What is qBittorrent Team stance on migrating to Python 3 at this point?

The devs wanted to drop python 2 for some time now and the only thing stopping them is Mac which will support it until 2020 if i'm not mistaken qbittorrent/search-plugins#84.

[vespertinee]

• add the following environment variables to PATH:
  ;C:\PythonX; C:\PythonX\Scripts
  X is your version of python

hey, im trying to do this fix but i'm stuck on point 7. how do i do this?

[FranciscoPombal]

Superseded by #13122