Pip: ImportError: No module named setuptools (add details to docs)

[qwcode]

Users are getting "ImportError: No module named setuptools" when using pip to upgrade a package since distribute-0.7.3 was released.

e.g. when running a command like this: pip install --upgrade pyramid

Solution

To prevent the problem in _new_ environments (that aren't broken yet),

1. _First_ run pip install -U setuptools,
2. _Then_ run the command to upgrade your package (e.g. pip install --upgrade pyramid)

To fix the problem once it's occurred, you'll need to manually install the new setuptools, then rerun the upgrade that failed.

1. Download ez_setup.py (https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/downloads/ez_setup.py)
2. Run python ez_setup.py
3. Then rerun your upgrade (e.g. pip install --upgrade pyramid)

Also note that pip-1.4 (unreleased) has fixes to prevent this

Cause

distribute-0.7.3 is just an empty wrapper that only serves to require the new setuptools (setuptools>=0.7) so that it will be installed. (if you don't know yet, the "new setuptools" is a merge of distribute and setuptools back into one project)

distribute-0.7.3 does it's job well, when the upgrade is done in isolation. E.g. if you're currently on distribute-0.6.X, then running pip install -U setuptools works fine to upgrade you to setuptools>=0.7.

The problem occurs when:

1. you are currently using an older distribute (i.e. 0.6.X)
2. and you try to use pip to upgrade a package that _depends_ on setuptools or distribute.

As part of the upgrade process, pip builds an install list that ends up including distribute-0.7.3 and setuptools>=0.7 , but they can end up being separated by other dependencies in the list, so what can happen is this:

1. pip uninstalls the existing distribute
2. pip installs distribute-0.7.3 (which has no importable setuptools, that pip _needs_ internally to function)
3. pip moves onto install another dependency (before setuptools>=0.7) and is unable to proceed without the setuptools package

Note that pip-1.4 (unreleased) has fixes to prevent this. distribute-0.7.3 (or setuptools>=0.7) by themselves cannot prevent this kind of problem.

[mattolson]

Just ran into this installing supervisor via the Opscode recipe. Any workarounds?

Mixlib::ShellOut::ShellCommandFailed
------------------------------------
Expected process to exit with [0], but received '1'
---- Begin output of pip install  --upgrade supervisor ----
STDOUT: Downloading/unpacking supervisor
  Running setup.py egg_info for package supervisor

Downloading/unpacking distribute from https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/d/distribute/distribute-0.7.3.zip#md5=c6c59594a7b180af57af8a0cc0cf5b4a (from supervisor)
  Running setup.py egg_info for package distribute

Downloading/unpacking meld3>=0.6.5 (from supervisor)
  Running setup.py egg_info for package meld3

Downloading/unpacking setuptools>=0.7 (from distribute->supervisor)
  Running setup.py egg_info for package setuptools

Installing collected packages: supervisor, distribute, meld3, setuptools
  Running setup.py install for supervisor

    Skipping installation of /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/supervisor/__init__.py (namespace package)
    Installing /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/supervisor-3.0b2-py2.7-nspkg.pth
    Installing echo_supervisord_conf script to /usr/local/bin
    Installing pidproxy script to /usr/local/bin
    Installing supervisorctl script to /usr/local/bin
    Installing supervisord script to /usr/local/bin
  Found existing installation: distribute 0.6.49
    Uninstalling distribute:
      Successfully uninstalled distribute
  Running setup.py install for distribute

  Running setup.py install for meld3
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
    ImportError: No module named setuptools
    Complete output from command /usr/bin/python -c "import setuptools;__file__='/tmp/pip-build-root/meld3/setup.py';exec(compile(open(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-Q5i6NO-record/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed:
    Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>

ImportError: No module named setuptools

[qwcode]

yes, see the solution section in the description.

[qwcode]

Jannis asked us to work the text from the description into the docs to make it more likely to be found

[qwcode]

added a cookbook entry for this:
https://github.com/pypa/pip/commit/1e9202a861028e268847deadae8681a6622cf922

[StevenLOL]

En same error again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UBUNTU 15.10

python --version
Python 2.7.10

sudo pip install pip -I

...successfully installed pip-8.1.0

sudo pip install setuptools

...Sucessfully ..... setuptools-20.2.2

sudo pip install protobuf -I

...Could not ..
...
...
No module named extern

[StevenLOL]

fixed by

apt-get install --reinstall python-setuptools