Broken pip

[Thomas Jollans]

On 2018-08-28 20:10, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> I'm trying to upgrade my pip on Ubuntu 16.04. I appear to have
> buggered things up pretty well. (Details follow) Any suggestions
> on how to undo this and get everything back to proper operation?
> 
> Based on the information that I found at:
> <https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/3776>, I did the following:
> 
> user at host$ pip --version
> pip 9.0.1 from /home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (python 2.7)

Apparently, you did it the "right" way before: installing anything
system-wide with pip that has already been installed with distribution
packages is fairly likely to break. Installing a newer pip in your home
directory should normally work fine.

Opinions differ, but personally I *never* use "sudo pip": use "pip
install --user" instead. This installs into ~/.local rather than /usr/local.

i.e.: try

  python -m pip install --upgrade --user pip

If that works, see if

  python -m pip --version
and
  pip --version

work and show the same thing. If the latter doesn't work or shows an old
version, you may have to make sure ~/.local/bin/pip has priority over
/usr/bin/pip (e.g. by putting ~/.local/bin/ near the front of your $PATH)

If things break, you now know how to undo the damage thanks to Larry ;-)

Also, PLEASE use Python 3. Still using Python 2 today is like still
using Windows XP in early 2013.

https://pythonclock.org/

-- Thomas


> user at host$ pip install --upgrade pip
> Collecting pip
>   Downloading
> https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/5f/25/e52d3f31441505a5f3af41213346e5b6c221c9e086a166f3703d2ddaf940/pip-18.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
> (1.3MB)
>     100% |████████████████████████████████| 1.3MB 453kB/s
> Installing collected packages: pip
>   Found existing installation: pip 9.0.1
>     Uninstalling pip-9.0.1:
>       Successfully uninstalled pip-9.0.1
>   Rolling back uninstall of pip
> Exception:
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  [snip error traceback]
>     mkdir(name, mode)
> OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied:
> '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip'
> You are using pip version 9.0.1, however version 18.0 is available.
> You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
> user at host$ pip --version
> SError: [Errno 13] Permission denied:
> '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip'
> You are using pip version 9.0.1, however version 18.0 is available.
> You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
> user at host$ pip --version
> pip 9.0.1 from /home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (python 2.7)
> user at host$
> 
> Sure enough, no change. Given the file permission error, I figured
> that I needed root privileges, so I tried again:
> 
> user at host$ sudo pip install --upgrade pip
> [sudo] password for user:
> The directory '/home/user/.cache/pip/http' or its parent directory is
> not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please
> check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with
> sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
> The directory '/home/user/.cache/pip' or its parent directory is not
> owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check
> the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo,
> you may want sudo's -H flag.
> Collecting pip
>   Downloading
> https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/5f/25/e52d3f31441505a5f3af41213346e5b6c221c9e086a166f3703d2ddaf940/pip-18.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
> (1.3MB)
>     100% |████████████████████████████████| 1.3MB 442kB/s
> Installing collected packages: pip
>   Found existing installation: pip 9.0.1
>     Uninstalling pip-9.0.1:
>       Successfully uninstalled pip-9.0.1
> Successfully installed pip-18.0
> user at host$ pip --version
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/bin/pip", line 9, in <module>
>     from pip import main
> ImportError: cannot import name main
> user at host$
> 
> Well, even though it said "Successfully installed", it appears to
> not have done so.
> 
> Trying again with sudo's -H option:
> 
> user at host$ sudo -H pip install --upgrade pip
> Requirement already up-to-date: pip in
> /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (18.0)
> user at host$ pip --version
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/bin/pip", line 9, in <module>
>     from pip import main
> ImportError: cannot import name main
> user at host$
>