Dependency conflict: protobuf incompatibility between librespot and pywidevine makes Votify unusable

[onlygiogi]

I’m unable to install or run Votify due to unresolved and conflicting protobuf dependencies between librespot, pywidevine, and votify itself.
Even after multiple clean virtual environment setups, the project fails due to incompatible protobuf version requirements.

Steps to reproduce:

python -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\activate
pip install votify[librespot]
votify "<playlist_url>" --output "<output_path>" --cookies-path "<cookies.txt>"

Actual behavior:

The installation or runtime fails with protobuf-related errors such as:

TypeError: Descriptors cannot be created directly
ImportError: cannot import name 'runtime_version' from google.protobuf

And multiple dependency conflicts like:

librespot requires protobuf==3.20.1
pywidevine requires protobuf==4.21.6 or >=6.x

Votify / generated protobuf code is incompatible across these versions

Environment:

OS: Windows 11
Python: 3.11 / 3.13 (both tested)
Votify: 1.9.9
pip: latest version
Installed in clean virtual environments

Additional notes

I also attempted manually pinning compatible versions of protobuf, librespot, and pywidevine, but there is no known working combination where all dependencies resolve successfully.

It appears to be a structural incompatibility between dependencies rather than a user environment issue.

Is there a known compatible set of dependency versions, or an older stable branch of Votify that avoids the protobuf conflicts between librespot and pywidevine?

[ilovecats4606]

you gotta instal soem specific versions and you can change the protobuf implementation:

How to get votiy working 100%%%

1. python -m venv votify-env && votify-env\Scripts\activate && python -m pip install -U pip && pip install votify
2. pip install "votify[librespot]"
3. set PROTOCOL_BUFFERS_PYTHON_IMPLEMENTATION=python
4. pip uninstall librespot -y && pip install git+https://github.com/kokarare1212/librespot-python.git
5. pip install protobuf==6.33.6 --force-reinstall
6. set PROTOCOL_BUFFERS_PYTHON_IMPLEMENTATION=python
7. It works

[AndyBogle1]

@ilovecats4606's solution on macOS:

brew install python@3.10
python3.10 -m venv votify-env
source votify-env/bin/activate
python -m pip install -U pip
pip install votify
pip install "votify[librespot]"
export PROTOCOL_BUFFERS_PYTHON_IMPLEMENTATION=python
pip uninstall librespot -y
pip install git+https://github.com/kokarare1212/librespot-python.git
pip install --force-reinstall protobuf==6.33.6