Dear Maintainer,

our package CamiTK does not build since the update to ITK 5.4.7. While
troubleshooting the issue, we noticed that this is caused by VTK and ITK
requesting the same library: HDF5.

VTK uses a custom, older FindHDF5.cmake, while ITK uses the system one.
The CMake variables defined by the two FindHDF5.cmake are different,
which leads to an error at the configure step about not finding HDF5.

Our package does not require HDF5 except through VTK and ITK.
The curent workaround we are considering is to require it before asking
for VTK and ITK in our CMake files.

Here is a minimal example of a CMakeLists.txt file that shows the issue:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.28)
project(HDF5Issue)
# FIX: find_package(HDF5 COMPONENTS C HL)
find_package(VTK REQUIRED COMPONENTS CommonCore)
find_package(ITK REQUIRED)


Configuring the project ("cmake -S . --build build") in the directory
with this CMakeLists.txt generates an error identical to the one in our package:

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
vtk9, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1147167@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Dominique Belhachemi <domibel@debian.org> (supplier of updated vtk9 package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:35:02 -0400
Source: vtk9
Architecture: source
Version: 9.6.2+dfsg1-6
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian Science Maintainers <debian-science-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Changed-By: Dominique Belhachemi <domibel@debian.org>
Closes: 1147167
Changes:
 vtk9 (9.6.2+dfsg1-6) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Team upload.
   * Drop unused 121_add_support_for_loong64.patch
   * Do not install VTK's bundled FindHDF5.cmake (Closes: #1147167)
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Hi,
this does not seem to be fixed.

In src:vmtk I have the following patch as a work-around
https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/vmtk/-/blob/master/debian/patches/build_explicit_find_hdf5.diff

I tried removing it after seeing that this was marked as done, but I still get the same cmake error as in the opening message.

Francesco

Are you still able to reproduce it?

vmtk builds for me in unstable with build_explicit_find_hdf5.diff disabled.

cu
Adrian

Package: vtk9
Followup-For: Bug #1147167
X-Debbugs-Cc: bunk@debian.org

Hi Adrian,
I can confirm that I can now build vmtk without the patch. I've done a new
upload without it.

Thanks,
Francesco