i2c-tools are installed, but i2cdetect returns "command not found" error

Question

I've got a raspberry pi zero (with a fresh install of the current raspian OS) and I'm trying to find the i2c address of a connected display. When I try to scan for devices using i2cdetect -y 1 I get the following error:
bash: i2cdetect: command not found

I've tried the following:

1. Confirmed that i2c tools and python3-smbus are installed with:
   1. sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
   2. sudo apt-get install python3-smbus
2. Enabled i2c in sudo raspi-config
3. Rebooting: Does not help.

Answer 1

Interesting... the i2ctools have always behaved a little strangely. For example, if you don't have i2c1 enabled, you get an error like this (on my RPi OS Lite 'bullseye'):

$ i2cdetect -y 1
Error: Could not open file `/dev/i2c-1' or `/dev/i2c/1': No such file or directory

OTOH, if I do have i2c1 enabled, I can run i2cdetect -y 1 without error. I know the error I listed above was not what you saw, but you may want to check that it's i2c1 you have enabled - just to make sure.

Beyond that, here's a couple of things you can try:

• This will tell you where (if anywhere) i2cdetect is installed:

$ whereis i2cdetect
i2cdetect: /usr/sbin/i2cdetect /usr/share/man/man8/i2cdetect.8.gz

• This will check your PATH - make sure whatever folder whereis found your i2cdetect in - is on your PATH:

$ $ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games 

Check those & get back to us w/ your findings.

Answer 2

Adding /user/sbin to the PATH is a better solution, but another option is this python code: python i2cdetect