Sending emails from outlook with Python not working

I have been running some code for a while which automates some emails using win32com.client. All has been working for months but today I am getting an error.

import win32com.client

olMailItem = 0
obj = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
newMail = obj.CreateItem(olMailItem)

Today I get the error AttributeError: module 'win32com.gen_py.00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046x0x9x6' has no attribute 'CLSIDToPackageMap'

If I try "Excel.Application" or "Word.Application" then I don't get an error and Outlook is installed and working on my system. Last week I came across the issue where mail.Bcc and mail.HTMLbody changed to mail.BCC and mail.HTMLBody respectively but I've not found that a change in the string has helped.

Can anyone shed any light on what might be happening?

Thanks in advance.

Solution

You might have to remove some old files:

# If errors are found, do this
# clear contents of C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\gen_py
# that should fix it, to test it type
import win32com.client
app = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch("Outlook.Application")
app.Visible = True

This gist also has other solutions that remove the files automatically. Application needs to be adjusted.

1.)

from pathlib import Path
 try:
        xl = win32.gencache.EnsureDispatch('Excel.Application')
    except AttributeError:
        f_loc = r'C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\gen_py'
        for f in Path(f_loc):
            Path.unlink(f)
        Path.rmdir(f_loc)
        xl = win32.gencache.EnsureDispatch('Excel.Application')

2.)

try:
    xl = client.gencache.EnsureDispatch('Excel.Application')
except AttributeError:
    # Corner case dependencies.
    import os
    import re
    import sys
    import shutil
    # Remove cache and try again.
    MODULE_LIST = [m.__name__ for m in sys.modules.values()]
    for module in MODULE_LIST:
        if re.match(r'win32com\.gen_py\..+', module):
            del sys.modules[module]
    shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(os.environ.get('LOCALAPPDATA'), 'Temp', 'gen_py'))
    from win32com import client
    xl = client.gencache.EnsureDispatch('Excel.Application')