ImportError: No module named '_tkinter', please install the python3-tk package

Question

After an sudo apt-get upgrade, I get the following error:

Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 23 2017, 16:37:01) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import tkinter
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/tkinter/__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
    import _tkinter
ImportError: No module named '_tkinter'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/tkinter/__init__.py", line 38, in <module>
    raise ImportError(str(msg) + ', please install the python3-tk package')
ImportError: No module named '_tkinter', please install the python3-tk package

I have python3-tk installed. I already tried purging and installing it. Doesn't change anything. (Interestingly, the /usr/lib/python3.5/tkinter still existed after pruging... and manually removing it did only lead to another error)

How can I fix this problem?

Did not solve the problem:

$ sudo apt-get install tk8.6-dev
$ sudo apt-get install python3-tkinter # does not exist
$ sudo apt-get install python3-tk  # exists and is installed

Comment answers

$ ls -l /usr/lib/python3.5/tkinter
total 372
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1791 Nov 28 17:50 colorchooser.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1412 Nov 28 17:50 commondialog.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1493 Nov 28 17:50 constants.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1568 Nov 28 17:50 dialog.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11488 Nov 28 17:50 dnd.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  14502 Nov 28 17:50 filedialog.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   6581 Nov 28 17:50 font.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 162249 Nov 28 17:50 __init__.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    148 Nov 28 17:50 __main__.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   3701 Nov 28 17:50 messagebox.py
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Nov 30 08:12 __pycache__
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   1814 Nov 28 17:50 scrolledtext.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11424 Nov 28 17:50 simpledialog.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  77014 Nov 28 17:50 tix.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  55839 Nov 28 17:50 ttk.py

When moving the directory, I get:

$ sudo mv tkinter tkinter-backup
$ python3
Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 23 2017, 16:37:01) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import tkinter
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named 'tkinter'

More info

$ which python3
/usr/bin/python3

$ apt list python3
Listing... Done
python3/xenial,now 3.5.1-3 amd64 [installed]

Solution

The python3-tk package has support for python versions 3.6 and 3.7, not 3.5, which is your default. Change your default python to a version supported if your work supports that. Otherwise, if you really need version3.5, you will need to track down the support files.

Comments

[Steve]

What do you see if you run ls -l /usr/lib/python3.5/tkinter? You say that you manually removed it resulting in another error, what was that error?

[Steve]

Where is your python installation from? Can you run which python3 and apt list python3?

[Martin Thoma]

@Steve See edited question for the answers

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

Possible duplicate of ImportError: No named '_tkinter', please install the python3-tk package

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

Capital T is for Python 2.7.12. OP is trying to use Python 3.x.