My pip is broken. _internal module cannot be imported.

[zchrissirhcz]

Maintainer note: Anyone that still gets this issue please see #5599.

---

• Pip version: 8.1.1
• Python version: 2.7.12
• Operating system: Ubuntu 16.04 (64 bit)

Description:

my pip is broken. it cannot update. It also complains error when just type pip.

What I've run:

pip

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line7, in <module>
      from pip._internal import main
ImportError: No module named _internal

Also tried sudo pip or sudo su; pip, with same output.

[zchrissirhcz]

By typing:

sudo apt remove python-pip

the problem disappears. Strange.

[mgedmin]

It's a bad idea to sudo pip install -U pip.

[earcz]

I had the same problem, so that I applied your strange method: sudo apt remove python-pip
and it solved my problem as well. I think it is about the version difference. Because before I removed pip, I upgraded pip from 8 to 10. After I removed pip, I checked the version of pip and output showed that I have pip with version of 10. And problem disappeared :) @zchrissirhcz

[aamick01]

This solution worked for me as well, as my error traceback was identical. Thanks for sharing.

[PavelNiedoba]

When I try to uninstall pip on fedora it tries to remove 377 packages. I'm sure this wold break whole system

[zchrissirhcz]

@PavelNiedoba In my case, I first update pip with pip, then remove python-pip package on Ubuntu with apt.

[PetreVane]

I had the same problem but I've used the temporary fix mentioned in issue #5240. Soon after that, a new complain popped out, indicating an error in line 11.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 11, in
sys.exit(main())
NameError: name 'main' is not defined

I've changed the last line, from

sys.exit(main())

to

sys.exit(_main())

and Voila! Problem dismissed.

[Shuailong]

I just change the from pip._internal import main into from pip import main and Voila! Problem dismissed

[mahxn0]

sudo python -m pip install -U pip==8.0.1

[erijonhson]

As indicated by @mahxn0, I did:

sudo python -m pip install -U pip == 8.0.1

After this:

sudo pip install -U pip

And it's working normally now ;)

[kouamegerard]

hi the brothers excuse me I have a problem with my mac OS, I already have a Python version 2.7 and I installed version 3.6 but I still have the system that puts me 2.7 in my / Library and I do not know what to do I can not even install modules on my IDE

[kouamegerard]

please help me :'(

[DanielLSM]

@kouamegerard the problem is the python package manager, the pip is broken. You need to remove and re-install pip, specially not the version 10.0. Try to search on google how to install a pip version (like 9.0) on mac OS, hope this helps.

[pradyunsg]

@kouamegerard I would suggest you use a homebrew provided Python installation (brew install python after installing it from https://brew.sh).

[bobeobibo]

Strange indeed! I typed "sudo apt remove python3-pip", and then ran pip3, and it has installed all the packages it wasn't able to install before....

[abdallahokasha]

This solution works with me xD

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python get-pip.py --force-reinstall

or
use sudo for the higher permission:

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py --force-reinstall

Of course, we can use python3 instead of python ;)

Ref

[yegorski]

I hit this inside a Dockerfile (when installing python3.6 and python3-pip).
Removing this line RUN pip3 install --upgrade pip resolved the issue.

[pradyunsg]

I'd suggest looking at #5599 as for the root cause of this issue, and for describing what fixes it.

[ericoporto]

#5599 (comment) solved for me

python -m pip uninstall pip

and then do

pip3 install --user PACKAGENAME

[mrroot5]

This works for me in Python3 and Ubuntu 18.04.

Install pip3:

sudo python3 -m pip install -U pip==19.0.2

Upgrade pip3:

sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip

[cdutr]

I solved this by updating pip via Python, like this:

python2 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip

python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip

[yebo29]

This solution works with me xD

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python get-pip.py --force-reinstall

or
use sudo for the higher permission:

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py --force-reinstall

Of course, we can use python3 instead of python ;)

Ref

I had to use the -H option to sudo for it work.
sudo -H python get-pip.py --force-reinstall

[lock]

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