langchain-ai/langchain · error · ImportError

defusedxml is not installed. Please install it to use the…

Error message

defusedxml is not installed. Please install it to use the defusedxml parser. You can install it with `pip install defusedxml`. See https://github.com/tiran/defusedxml for more details

What it means

ImportError raised in _StreamingParser.__init__ when parser='defusedxml' is requested but the optional defusedxml package is not installed. The streaming XML parser needs defusedxml's XMLParser to protect against entity-expansion and other XML attacks, so it refuses to fall back silently to the unsafe stdlib parser.

Solutions

Install defusedxml: pip install defusedxml (or add it to your project dependencies)
If you intentionally parse fully trusted input only, construct XMLOutputParser with the standard-library parser option instead of parser='defusedxml'
Pin defusedxml in requirements/uv.lock so CI and prod match

Example fix

# before (ImportError at runtime)
parser = XMLOutputParser(parser="defusedxml")

# after
# shell: pip install defusedxml
parser = XMLOutputParser(parser="defusedxml")  # now works

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import importlib.util
if parser_name == "defusedxml" and importlib.util.find_spec("defusedxml") is None:
    raise ImportError("install defusedxml before using the defusedxml XML parser")

Prevention

Add defusedxml to project dependencies when using XMLOutputParser
Check optional dependencies at application startup, not at parse time

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing XMLOutputParser(parser='defusedxml') (the default) in an environment where defusedxml is not installed — langchain-core does not depend on it unconditionally.

Common situations: Deploying to slim containers/lambda images that installed langchain-core without the xml extra; upgrading langchain versions where the optional dependency was pruned from the lockfile.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of langchain-ai/langchain@e32fa9a52e (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2e4760231170d610. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at libs/core/langchain_core/output_parsers/xml.py:70

        Args:
            parser: Parser to use for XML parsing.

                Can be either `'defusedxml'` or `'xml'`. See documentation in
                `XMLOutputParser` for more information.

        Raises:
            ImportError: If `defusedxml` is not installed and the `defusedxml` parser is
                requested.
        """
        if parser == "defusedxml":
            if not _HAS_DEFUSEDXML:
                msg = (
                    "defusedxml is not installed. "
                    "Please install it to use the defusedxml parser. "
                    "You can install it with `pip install defusedxml`. "
                    "See https://github.com/tiran/defusedxml for more details"
                )
                raise ImportError(msg)
            parser_ = XMLParser(target=TreeBuilder())
        else:
            parser_ = None
        self.pull_parser = ET.XMLPullParser(["start", "end"], _parser=parser_)
        self.xml_start_re = re.compile(r"<[a-zA-Z:_]")
        self.current_path: list[str] = []
        self.current_path_has_children = False
        self.buffer = ""
        self.xml_started = False

    def parse(self, chunk: str | BaseMessage) -> Iterator[AddableDict]:
        """Parse a chunk of text.

        Args:
            chunk: A chunk of text to parse. This can be a `str` or a `BaseMessage`.

        Yields:
            A `dict` representing the parsed XML element.

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