Pip exits when installing build dependencies for pygame-ce

Question

I had pygame (not ce) on my Debian system and then updated it to pygame-ce using pip install —-upgrade pygame-ce and it worked fine, installing pygame-ce==2.5.2 . There were some more recent updates since and I decided to update pygame-ce again using the same command. I am using python 3.9.2 and pip 25.1.1 . I got a similar error trying to install it on windows but never this issue on my Linux box. It looks like there is no library portmidi which it apparently needs, but I tried running sudo apt install portmidi portmidi-dev but apparently neither of those packages exist. I don’t know where pip and/or meson is building pygame.

Full pip output:

$ pip install --upgrade pygame-ce
Defaulting to user installation because normal site-packages is not writeable
Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple
Requirement already satisfied: pygame-ce in /usr/local/lib/python3.9/dist-packages (2.5.2)
Collecting pygame-ce
  Using cached pygame_ce-2.5.5.tar.gz (5.8 MB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Installing backend dependencies ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error
 
  × Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [34 lines of output]
      + meson setup /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1 /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1/.mesonpy-qmbs8ea0 -Dbuildtype=release -Db_ndebug=if-release -Db_vscrt=md --native-file=/tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1/.mesonpy-qmbs8ea0/meson-python-native-file.ini
      The Meson build system
      Version: 1.7.0
      Source dir: /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1
      Build dir: /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1/.mesonpy-qmbs8ea0
      Build type: native build
      Program python found: YES
      ../meson_options.txt:27: WARNING: Project does not target a minimum version but uses feature deprecated since '1.1.0': "boolean option" keyword argument "value" of type str. use a boolean, not a string
      ../meson_options.txt:31: WARNING: Project does not target a minimum version but uses feature deprecated since '1.1.0': "boolean option" keyword argument "value" of type str. use a boolean, not a string
      ../meson_options.txt:35: WARNING: Project does not target a minimum version but uses feature deprecated since '1.1.0': "boolean option" keyword argument "value" of type str. use a boolean, not a string
      Project name: pygame_ce
      Project version: 2.5.5
      C compiler for the host machine: cc (gcc 10.2.1 "cc (Raspbian 10.2.1-6+rpi1) 10.2.1 20210110")
      C linker for the host machine: cc ld.bfd 2.35.2
      Cython compiler for the host machine: cython (cython 3.0.11)
      Host machine cpu family: arm
      Host machine cpu: arm
      Program python found: YES
      Program python found: YES (/usr/bin/python3)
      Found pkg-config: YES (/usr/bin/pkg-config) 0.29.2
      Run-time dependency python found: YES 3.9
      Has header "Python.h" with dependency python-3.9: YES
      Run-time dependency sdl2 found: YES 2.0.14
      Run-time dependency sdl2_image found: YES 2.0.5
      Run-time dependency sdl2_mixer found: YES 2.0.4
      Run-time dependency sdl2_ttf found: YES 2.0.15
      Run-time dependency freetype2 found: YES 23.4.17
      Found CMake: /usr/bin/cmake (3.18.4)
      WARNING: CMake Toolchain: Failed to determine CMake compilers state
      Run-time dependency portmidi found: NO (tried pkgconfig and cmake)
     
      ../meson.build:302:25: ERROR: C shared or static library 'portmidi' not found
     
      A full log can be found at /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/pygame-ce_1fb067b21b694b7e8cf6cc8e4fdaa8b1/.mesonpy-qmbs8ea0/meson-logs/meson-log.txt
      [end of output]
 
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: metadata-generation-failed

× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.

note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

There appears not to be any file at /tmp/pip-install-7cxt5bz1/.../meson-logs/meson-log.txt .

This is the cause of the problem: "Run-time dependency portmidi found: NO". Install portmidi. Perhaps sudo apt install -y libportmidi-dev. — phd
– phd, Commented Jun 22 at 10:02
next time use apt search portmidi to check if there is portmidi and what is full name. On Linux Mint I see libportmidi-dev (probably source code) and libportmidi0 (compiled version) but you may have little different name — furas
– furas, Commented Jun 22 at 13:28

Viktor Sbruev · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-22 13:59:20Z

2

The issue is caused by the missing portmidi library, as indicated by the error message:

Run-time dependency portmidi found: NO (tried pkgconfig and cmake)
../meson.build:302:25: ERROR: C shared or static library 'portmidi' not found

On Debian-based systems (I saw Raspbian in the pip output, so you must be using a Debian system), the correct package to install is libportmidi-dev.

Here is the command to install it:

sudo apt install libportmidi-dev

This package should help you to correctly build pygame-ce.

Also, if you're using a virtual environment for your project, ensure the development packages are installed for the same Python version you're using.

answered Jun 22 at 13:59

Viktor Sbruev

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