Error after upgrading pip cannot import name main

Question

Whenever I am trying to install any package using pip  I am getting this import error   guru guru-notebook    pip3 install numpy Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr bin pip3   line 9  in  lt module gt      from pip import main ImportError  cannot import name  main      guru guru-notebook    cat  which pip3     usr bin python3   GENERATED BY DEBIAN  import sys    Run the main entry point  similarly to how setuptools does it  but because   we didn t install the actual entry point from setup py  don t use the   pkg resources API  from pip import main if   name         main         sys exit main      It was working fine earlier  I am not sure why it is throwing this error  I have searched about this error  but can t find anything to fix it   Please let me know if you need any further detail  I will update my question

User · Answer

I used the following code to load a module that might need install  thus avoiding this error  which I also got  - using the latest Python and latest pip with no problem try   from colorama import Fore  Back  Style except     pip install colorama   from colorama import Fore  Back  Style

User · Answer

you can simply fix the pip and pip3 paths using update-alternatives  first thing you should check is your current  PATH run echo  PATH and see is you can find  usr local bin which is where pip3 and pip usually are  there is a change your system is looking here  bin pip and  bin pip3 so i will say fix the PATH by adding to your    bash profile file so it persists   export PATH  PATH  usr local bin and then check is its fixed with which pip and which pip3  if not then use update-alternatives to fix it finally  update-alternatives --install  bin pip3 pip3  usr local bin pip3 30   and if you want to point pip to pip3 then  update-alternatives --install  bin pip pip  usr local bin pip3 30

User · Answer

For what it s worth  I had the problem with pip  not pip2 or pip3      pip -V Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr bin pip   line 9  in  lt module gt      from pip import main ImportError  cannot import name main    pip2 -V pip 8 1 1 from  usr lib python2 7 dist-packages  python 2 7     pip3 -V pip 8 1 1 from  usr lib python3 dist-packages  python 3 5    Somehow  I can t remember how  I had python stuff installed in my    local directory   After I removed the pip directory from there  pip started working again     rm -rf  home precor  local lib python2 7 site-packages pip   pip -V pip 8 1 1 from  usr lib python2 7 dist-packages  python 2 7

User · Answer

I met the same problem on my Ubuntu 16 04 system  I managed to fix it by re-installing pip with the following command   curl https   bootstrap pypa io get-pip py   sudo python3

User · Answer

On Debian you will need to update apt first      sudo apt-get update -qq sudo apt-get install python-pip -qq sudo pip install pip --upgrade --quiet sudo pip2 install virtualenv --quiet   If you skip  sudo apt-get update -qq  your pip will become corrupt and display the  cannot find main  error

User · Answer

resolved in one step only   I too faced this issue  But this can be resolved simply by 1 command without bothering around and wasting time and i have tried it on multiple systems it s the cleanest solution for this issue  And that s   For python3 -  sudo python3 -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python3-pip --reinstall   By this   you can simply install packages using pip3  to check use pip3 --version   For older versions  use   sudo python -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python-pip --reinstall   By this  now you can simply install packages using pip  to check use pip --version

User · Answer

We can clear the error by modifying the pip file   Check the location of the file     which pip      path -   usr bin pip   Go to that location  usr bin pip  and open terminal   Enter    sudo nano pip  You can see   import sys from pip import main if   name         main          sys exit main      Change to   import sys from pip import   main   if   name         main          sys exit   main    main      then ctrl   o write the changes and exit   Hope this will do

User · Answer

I also run into this problem when I wanted to upgrade system pip pip3 from 9 0 1 to 19 2 3   After running pip3 install --upgrade pip  pip version becomes 19 2 3  But main   has been moved in pip  internal in the latest version  which leaves pip3 broken   So in file  usr bin pip3  replace line 9  from pip import main with from pip  internal import main  The issue will be fixed  works the same for python2-pip   Tested on Ubuntu 18 04 distribution   According to  Vincent H  s answer

User · Answer

In ubuntu 18 04 1 Bionic Beaver  you need to log out and log back in  restart not necessary  to get the proper environment     sudo apt install python-pip    pip --version pip 9 0 1 from  usr lib python2 7 dist-packages  python 2 7     pip install --upgrade pip    pip --version Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr bin pip   line 9  in  lt module gt      from pip import main ImportError  cannot import name main    exit  lt login gt     pip --version pip 18 1 from  home test  local lib python2 7 site-packages pip  python 2 7

User · Answer

Please run the following commands to do the fix  After running python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip  please run the following command   hash -r pip   Source  https   github com pypa pip issues 5221

User · Answer

As  cryptoboy said - check what pip python version you have installed   demon UbuntuHP    pip -V  demon UbuntuHP    pip2 -V  demon UbuntuHP    pip3 -V   and then check for no-needed libraries in your  local lib  folder   I did backup of settings when I was migrating to newer Kubuntu and in had  local lib python2 7  folder in my home directory  Installed python 3 6  I just removed the old folder and now everything works great

User · Answer

Is something wrong with the packages  when it generating de file  usr bin pip  you have to change the import   from pip import main   to  from pip  internal import main   That solves the problem  I m not sure why it generated  but it saids somthing in the following issue   After pip 10 upgrade on pyenv  ImportError  cannot import name  main

User · Answer

What worked for me to fix the error with using pip3 was   sudo cp -v  usr local bin pip3  usr bin pip3  Everything works    demon UbuntuHP    pip -V  pip 10 0 1 from  usr local lib python3 5 dist-packages pip  python 3 5    demon UbuntuHP    pip2 -V  pip 10 0 1 from  home demon  local lib python2 7 site-packages pip  python 2 7    demon UbuntuHP    pip3 -V  pip 10 0 1 from  usr local lib python3 5 dist-packages pip  python 3 5    Maybe the new 10 0 1 version of pip doesn t update the binary in  usr bin    which seems it does not   EDIT  the same issue occurs in Ubuntu 18 04  The best solution I ve found is to symlink the pip binaries from  home  lt user  local bin to  usr local bin or  usr bin  depending on your preference   as follows   ln -sv  home  lt user gt   local bin pip  usr local bin pip ln -sv  home  lt user gt   local bin pip2  usr local bin pip2 ln -sv  home  lt user gt   local bin pip2 7  usr local bin pip2 7 ln -sv  home  lt user gt   local bin pip3  usr local bin pip3 ln -sv  home  lt user gt   local bin pip3 6  usr local bin pip3 6    NOTE  replace   lt user gt   with your current running user  The associated versions  latest  are in   Version 3 6    home demon  local lib python3 6 site-packages pip  python 3 6   Version 2 7    home demon  local lib python2 7 site-packages pip  python 2 7

User · Answer

Use python -m pip install instead of pip install  Example   python -m pip install --user somepackage python3 -m pip install --user somepackage   The pip  resp  pip3  executable is provided by your distro  python-pip package on Ubuntu 16 04  and located at  usr bin pip   Therefore  it is not kept up-to date with the pip package itself as you upgrade pip  and may break   If you just use python -m pip directly  e g  as in   python -m pip install --user somepackage python3 -m pip install --user somepackage   it goes through your Python path  finds the latest version of pip and executes that file   It relies on the fact that file is executable through import  but that is a very standard type of interface  and therefore less likely to break than the hackier Debian script   Then I recommend adding the following aliases to your  bashrc   pip     python -m pip        pip3     python3 -m pip          The Ubuntu 18 04  usr bin pip3 file does   from pip import main   and presumably main was removed from pip at some point which is what broke things   The breaking pip commit appears to be  95bcf8c5f6394298035a7332c441868f3b0169f4  Move all internal APIs to pip  internal  which went into pip 18 0   Tested in Ubuntu 16 04 after an update from pip3 9 0 1 to 18 0   pyenv  Ultimately however  for serious Python development I would just recommend that you install your own local Python with pyenv   virtualenv  which would also get around this Ubuntu bug  https   askubuntu com questions 682869 how-do-i-install-a-different-python-version-using-apt-get 1195153 1195153

User · Answer

For Python version 2 7  Anthony solution works perfect  by changing python3 to python as follows   sudo python -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python-pip --reinstall

User · Answer

You must have inadvertently upgraded your system pip  probably through something like sudo pip install pip --upgrade   pip 10 x adjusts where its internals are situated   The pip3 command you re seeing is one provided by your package maintainer  presumably debian based here   and is not a file managed by pip   You can read more about this on pip s issue tracker  You ll probably want to not upgrade your system pip and instead use a virtualenv   To recover the pip3 binary you ll need to sudo python3 -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python3-pip --reinstall   If you want to continue in  unsupported territory   upgrading a system package outside of the system package manager   you can probably get away with python3 -m pip     instead of pip3

User · Answer

I have the same problem and solved it  Here is my solution  First  when I run pip install something  the error came out like this   Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr bin pip3   line 9  in  lt module gt      from pip import main ImportError  cannot import name  main    So  I cd into the file  usr bin  and cat pip3 to see the code in it  I see this in it      usr bin python3   GENERATED BY DEBIAN import sys   Run the main entry point  similarly to how setuptools does it  but because   we didn t install the actual entry point from setup py  don t use the   pkg resources API  from pip import main if   name         main         sys exit main      And then I think that it was not in the installation path  So I cd into the python3-pip  like this   cd   local lib python3 5 site-packages pip   P S   you have to cd into the right directions in your computer Then I cat the file to see the differences you can use other operations to see the code    cat   main   py   And I saw this   from   future   import absolute import import os import sys   If we are running from a wheel  add the wheel to sys path   This allows the usage python pip-  whl pip install pip-  whl if   package                  file   is pip-  whl pip   main   py       first dirname call strips of     main   py   second strips off   pip        Resulting path is the name of the wheel itself       Add that to sys path so we can import pip     path   os path dirname os path dirname   file         sys path insert 0  path   from pip  internal import main as  main    isort skip   noqa  if   name         main         sys exit  main      So  can you see the difference  I can figure out that I have to make the file the same as the file in  usr bin pip3  So  I copied the code in   local lib python3 5 site-packages pip to replace the code in  usr bin pip3 and the problem disappear   P S   pip3 or pip have no difference in this problem  I will be happy if my solution solve your problem

User · Answer

I m running on a system where I have sudo apt but no sudo pip    And no su access    I got myself into this same situation by following the advice from pip       You are using pip version 8 1 1  however 18 0 is available   You should consider upgrading via the  pip install --upgrade pip  command    None of the other fixes worked for me  because I don t have enough admin privileges   However  a few things stuck with me from reading up on this    I shouldn t have done this   Sure  pip told me to   It lied  Using --user solves a lot of issues by focusing on the user-only directory    So  I found this command line to work to revert me back to where I was   If you were using a different version than 8 1 1  you will obviously want to change that part of the line   python -m pip install --force-reinstall pip  8 1 1 --user   That s the only thing that worked for me  but it worked perfectly

User · Answer

import main from pip  internal  from pip  internal import main   Edit the pip code from  sudo nano  usr bin pip3

User · Answer

I use  sudo apt remove python3-pip  then pip works       sudo pip install pip --upgrade  sudo  password for sen   Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr bin pip   line 9  in  lt module gt      from pip import main ImportError  cannot import name  main       sudo apt remove python3-pip    Reading package lists    Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information    Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required    libexpat1-dev libpython3-dev libpython3 5-dev python-pip-whl python3-dev python3-wheel   python3 5-dev Use  sudo apt autoremove  to remove them  The following packages will be REMOVED    python3-pip 0 upgraded  0 newly installed  1 to remove and 0 not upgraded  After this operation  569 kB disk space will be freed  Do you want to continue   Y n  y  Reading database     215769 files and directories currently installed   Removing python3-pip  8 1 1-2ubuntu0 4      Processing triggers for man-db  2 7 5-1           pip  Usage       pip  lt command gt   options

User · Answer

Use the following command before the execution of any pip command   hash -d pip   It will work

User · Answer

Trick and works too     sudo -H pip install lxml

User · Answer

I had this same error  but python -m pip was still working  so I fixed it with the nuclear option sudo python -m pip install --upgrade pip  It did it for me

User · Answer

Recover with python3 -m pip install --user pip  9 0 1  or the version that worked

User · Answer

The commands above didn t work for me but those were very helpful   sudo apt purge python3-pip sudo rm -rf   usr lib python3 dist-packages pip    sudo apt install python3-pip cd cd  local lib python3 site-packages sudo rm -rf pip    cd cd  local lib python3 5 site-packages sudo rm -rf pip    sudo pip3 install jupyter

User · Answer

This error may be a permission one  So  test executing the command with -H flag   sudo -H pip3 install numpy

User · Answer

Same thing happened to me on Pixelbook using the new LXC  strech   This solution is very similar to the accepted one  with one subtle difference  whiched fixed pip3 for me   sudo python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip   That bumped the version  and now it works as expected   I found it here     Python org  Ensure pip is up-to-date

User · Answer

You can resolve this issue by reinstalling pip   Use one of the following command line commands to reinstall pip   Python2   python -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python-pip --reinstall   Python3    python3 -m pip uninstall pip  amp  amp  sudo apt install python3-pip --reinstall

User · Answer

For Ubuntu family  Debian  Linux Mint users Thanks to Anthony s explanation above  you can retain your original system pip  in  usr bin  and dist-packages   and remove the manually-installed pip  in    local   to resolve the conflict    python3 -m pip uninstall pip Ubuntu Debian pip v8 1 1  16 04  from python3-pip debian package  see  pip3 -V  shows the same search results as the latest pip v10 0 1  and installs latest modules from PyPI just fine  It has a working pip command  already in the  PATH   plus the nice --user option patched-in by default since 2016  Looking at pip release notes  the newer versions are mostly about use-case specific bug fixes and certain new features  so not everyone has to rush upgrading pip just yet  And the new pip 10 can be deployed to Python virtualenvs  anyway  But regardless of pips  your OS allows to quickly install common Python modules  including numpy  with APT  without the need for pip  for example    sudo apt install python3-numpy python3-scipy  with system dependencies    sudo apt install python3-pip  Debian-patched pip  slightly older but it doesn t matter   Quick apt syntax reminder  please see man apt for details     sudo apt update  to resync Ubuntu package index files from up-to-date sources    apt search  lt python-package-name gt    full text-search on all available packages    apt show  lt python-package-name gt   displays the detailed package description    sudo apt install  lt python-package-name gt   Package names prefixed with python- are for Python 2  and prefixed with python3- are for Python 3  e g  python3-pandas   There are thousands  and they undergo integration testing within Debian and Ubuntu  Unless you seek to install at per-user level  pip install --user option  or within virtualenv venv  apt could be what you needed  These system packages are accessible from virtual envs too  as virtualenv will gracefully fall back to using system libs on import if your envs don t have given copies of modules  Your custom-installed  with pip --user  per-user modules in    local lib will override them too  Note  since this is a system-wide installation  you d rarely need to remove them  need to be mindful about OS dependencies   This is convenient for packages with many system dependencies  such as with scipy or matplotlib   as APT will keep track and provide all required system libs and C extensions  while with pip you have no such guarantees  In fact  for system-wide Python packages  in contrast to per-user  home dir level  or lower   Ubuntu expects using the APT package manager  rather than sudo pip  to avoid breaking OS  sudo pip3 targets the very same  usr lib python3 dist-packages directory where APT stores OS-sensitive modules  Recent Debian Ubuntu releases depend heavily on Python 3  so its pre-installed modules are managed by apt and shouldn t be changed  So if you use pip3 install command  please ensure that it runs in an isolated virtual dev environment  such as with virtualenv  sudo apt install python3-virtualenv   or with Python3 built-in  -m venv   or at a per-user level  --user pip option  default in Ubuntu-provided pip since 2016   but not system-wide  never sudo pip3    because pip interferes with the operation of the APT package manager and may affect Ubuntu OS components when a system-used python module is unexpectedly changed  Good luck   P  S   All the above is for the  ideal  solution  Debian Ubuntu way   If you still want to use the new pip3 v10 exclusively  there are 3 quick workarounds   simply open a new bash session  a new terminal tab  or type bash  - and pip3 v10 becomes available  see pip3 -V   debian s pip3 v8 remains installed but is broken  or the command   hash -d pip3  amp  amp  pip3 -V  to refresh pip3 pathname in the  PATH  debian s pip3 v8 remains installed but is broken  or the command   sudo apt remove python3-pip  amp  amp  hash -d pip3 to uninstall debian s pip3 v8 completely  in favor of your new pip3 v10   Note  You will always need to add --user flag to any non-debian-provided pip  unless you are in a virtualenv   it deploys python packages to    local   default in debian ubuntu-provided python3-pip and python-pip since 2016   Your use of pip 10 system-wide  outside of virtualenv  is not really supported by Ubuntu Debian  Never sudo pip3  Further details  https   github com pypa pip issues 5221 issuecomment-382069604 https   github com pypa pip issues 5240 issuecomment-381673100

User · Answer

You can try this     sudo ln -sf    type -P pip    usr bin pip

User · Answer

Check if pip has been cached on another path  to do so  call   which pip and check that the path is different from the one prompted in the error  if that s the case run     hash -r   When the cache is clear  pip will be working again  reference  http   cheng logdown com posts 2015 06 14 -usr-bin-pip-no-such-file-or-directory

User · Answer

This Worked for me    hash -r pip   or hash -d pip   Now  uninstall the pip installed version and reinstall it using the following commands   python -m pip uninstall pip    sudo sudo apt install --reinstall python-pip   If pip is broken  use   python -m pip install --force-reinstall pip   Hope it helps

[python] Error after upgrading pip: cannot import name 'main'

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