pip broke. how to fix DistributionNotFound error?

Whenever i try to use pip I get an error. For exampple:

$ sudo pip install gevent-websocket

Traceback (most recent call last):  
File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2675, in <module>
parse_requirements(__requires__), Environment()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 552, in resolve
raise DistributionNotFound(req)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==0.8.1

I feel tempted to change the value of into pip==0.8.2.. but I dont feel dealing with the consequences of ‘hacking’ up my installation…
I’m running python 2.7 and pip is at version 0.8.2.

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

I find this problem in my MacBook, the reason is because as @Stephan said, I use easy_install to install pip, and the mixture of both py package manage tools led to the pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound problem.
The resolve is:

easy_install --upgrade pip

Remember: just use one of the above tools to manage your Py packages.

Method 2

I replaced 0.8.1 in 0.8.2 in /usr/local/bin/pip and everything worked again.

__requires__ = 'pip==0.8.2'
import sys
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('pip==0.8.2', 'console_scripts', 'pip')()
    )

I installed pip through easy_install which probably caused me this headache.
I think this is how you should do it nowadays..

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev build-essential 
$ sudo pip install --upgrade pip 
$ sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv

Method 3

I had this issue when I was using homebrew. Here is the solution from Issue #26900

python -m pip install --upgrade --force pip

Method 4

Try re-installing with the get-pip script:

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python3 get-pip.py

This is sourced from the pip Github page, and worked for me.

Method 5

If you’re on CentOS make sure you have the YUM package “python-setuptools” installed

yum install python-setuptools

Fixed it for me.

Method 6

The root of the problem are often outdated scripts in the bin (Linux) or Scripts (Windows) subdirectory. I’ll explain this using problem I encountered myself as an example.

I had virtualenv version 1.10 installed in my user site-packages (the fact it’s in user site-packages not sytem site-packages is irrelevant here)

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="e9998d868b9b868e869a9da981869a9d">[email protected]</a>:~$ which virtualenv
/home/users/pdobrogost/.local/bin/virtualenv
<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b4c4d0dbd6c6dbd3dbc7c0f4dcdbc7c0">[email protected]</a>:~$ virtualenv --version
1.10

After I upgraded it to version 1.11 I got the following error:

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fe8e9a919c8c9199918d8abe96918d8a">[email protected]</a>:~$ virtualenv --version  
Traceback (most recent call last):   
  File "/home/users/pdobrogost/.local/bin/virtualenv", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point   
File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/pkg_resources.py", line 2701, in <module>
    return self.__dep_map   
File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/pkg_resources.py", line 572, in resolve
    if insert: 
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: virtualenv==1.10

File /home/users/pdobrogost/.local/bin/virtualenv mentioned in the error message looked like this:

#!/opt/python/2.7.5/bin/python2.7
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'virtualenv==1.10','console_scripts','virtualenv'
__requires__ = 'virtualenv==1.10'
import sys
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('virtualenv==1.10', 'console_scripts', 'virtualenv')()
    )

There, we see that virtualenv script was not updated and still requires previously installed version 1.10 of virtualenv.
Now, reinstalling virtualenv like this

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="4e3e2a212c3c2129213d3a0e26213d3a">[email protected]</a>:~$ pip install --user --upgrade virtualenv
Downloading/unpacking virtualenv from https://pypi.python.org/packages/py27/v/virtualenv/virtualenv-1.11.1-py27-none-any.whl#md5=265770b61de41d34d2e9fdfddcdf034c
  Using download cache from /home/users/pdobrogost/.pip_download_cache/https%3A%2F%2Fpypi.python.org%2Fpackages%2Fpy27%2Fv%2Fvirtualenv%2Fvirtualenv-1.11.1-py27-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: virtualenv
Successfully installed virtualenv
Cleaning up...

does not help (neither pip install --user --upgrade --force-reinstall virtualenv) because script /home/users/pdobrogost/.local/bin/virtualenv is left unchanged.

The only way I could fix this was by manually removing virtualenv* scripts from /home/users/pdobrogost/.local/bin/ folder and installing virtualenv again. After this, newly generated scripts refer to the proper version of the package:

<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="3747535855455850584443775f584443">[email protected]</a>:~$ virtualenv --version
1.11

Method 7

I was able to resolve this like so:

$ brew update
$ brew doctor
$ brew uninstall python
$ brew install python --build-from-source    # took ~5 mins
$ python --version                           # => Python 2.7.9
$ pip install --upgrade pip

I’m running w/ the following stuff (as of Jan 2, 2015):

OS X Yosemite
Version 10.10.1

$ brew -v
Homebrew 0.9.5

$ python --version
Python 2.7.9

$ ipython --version
2.2.0

$ pip --version
pip 6.0.3 from /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.9/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-6.0.3-py2.7.egg (python 2.7)

$ which pip
/usr/local/bin/pip

Method 8

I was facing the similar problem in OSx. My stacktrace was saying

raise DistributionNotFound(req)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: setuptools>=11.3

Then I did the following

sudo pip install --upgrade setuptools

This solved the problem for me. Hope someone will find this useful.

Method 9

On Mac OS X (MBP), the following (taken from another answer found herein) resolved my issues:

C02L257NDV33:~ jjohnson$ brew install pip
Error: No available formula for pip
Homebrew provides pip via: `brew install python`. However you will then
have two Pythons installed on your Mac, so alternatively you can:
    sudo easy_install pip
C02L257NDV33:~ jjohnson$ sudo easy_install pip

Clearly the root cause here is having a secondary method by which to install python (in my case Homebrew). Hopefully, the people responsible for the pip script can remedy this issue since its still relevant 2 years after first being reported on Stack Overflow.

Method 10

I had this problem because I installed python/pip with a weird ~/.pydistutils.cfg that I didn’t remember writing. Deleted it, reinstalled (with pybrew), and everything was fine.

Method 11

In my case (sam problem, but other packages) there was no version dependency. A sequence of pip uninstall and pip insstall did help.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0