# Newest verson broken: Freetype library not found

**URL:** <https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755>\
**Category:** Coding\
**Created:** [August 15, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755 "2020-08-15T19:12:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alexanderpei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@alexanderpei](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/alexanderpei)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/1 "2020-08-15T19:12:56Z")

</div>

Hello, the most recent version of Psychopy doesn’t seem to let me import visual and gives the following error. If I downgrade to 2020.1.2, the issue is resolved. Just thought I’d let you know.

from psychopy import sound, gui, visual, core, data, event, logging, clock  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\__init_\_.py”, line 30, in   
from .textbox2.textbox2 import TextBox2  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\textbox2\__init_\_.py”, line 4, in   
from .textbox2 import TextBox2, allFonts  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\textbox2\textbox2.py”, line 26, in   
from .fontmanager import FontManager, GLFont  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\psychopy\visual\textbox2\fontmanager.py”, line 21, in   
import freetype as ft  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\freetype\__init_\_.py”, line 24, in   
from freetype.raw import \*  
File “C:\Users\MxN-33\miniconda3\envs\lsl\lib\site-packages\freetype\raw.py”, line 52, in   
raise RuntimeError(‘Freetype library not found’)  
RuntimeError: Freetype library not found

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TParsons](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/tparsons/32/8301_2.png) [@TParsons](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/TParsons)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 9:52am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/2 "2020-08-17T09:52:20Z")

</div>

If you go to your Psychopy directory (most likely `C://Program Files/Psychopy3`) and look in `Lib/site-packages`, is there a folder called `freetype`? This could be a problem with compiling all of Psychopy’s requirements

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kurt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kurt](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/Kurt)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 8:55am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/3 "2020-09-14T08:55:02Z")

</div>

the same problem, and i don’t know what exactly you point at, indeed the folder freetype exists.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TParsons](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/tparsons/32/8301_2.png) [@TParsons](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/TParsons)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 12:41pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/4 "2020-09-21T12:41:18Z")

</div>

Is the folder definitely within you Psychopy directory specifically? If you have Python installed separately (for example if you use PyCharm or the Python IDLE) then that will have its own `site-packages` folder, which is totally independent from Psychopy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jedelmanny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f8ce5/32.png) [@jedelmanny](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/jedelmanny)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/5 "2020-10-16T20:40:14Z")

</div>

Hello! I’m running into the same issue. I installed the standalone version on my Mac (running Catalina). Any help would be appreciated! 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tiborauer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/tiborauer/32/7494_2.png) [@tiborauer](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/tiborauer)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/6 "2020-11-06T10:00:22Z")

</div>

Make sure you have [Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015-2019](https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads) installed. Freetype requires it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Becca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/becca/32/34260_2.png) [@Becca](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/Becca)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2020, 11:01am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/7 "2020-11-06T11:01:52Z")

</div>

I had this same issue, for some reason installing psychopy and dependencies with python 3.6 worked (but I received the error when working with python 3.9 could be something different but this thread lead me to use a different python installation [https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/12016](https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/12016) then I didn’t encounter the freetype error for some reason)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jedelmanny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f8ce5/32.png) [@jedelmanny](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/jedelmanny)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 4:44am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/newest-verson-broken-freetype-library-not-found/15755/8 "2020-11-21T04:44:55Z")

</div>

Thanks, Tiborauer. I have a Mac running Catalina. Do you know whether there’s a particular version of Visual C++ I should install?