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pip3 error - '_NamespacePath' object has no attribute 'sort'

I tried to install a package through pip3, and I got this error. Every pip/pip3 command that I run gives me this error-
alexg#hitbox:~$ pip3 -V
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/pip3", line 7, in <module>
from pip import main
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/__init__.py", line 26, in <module>
from pip.utils import get_installed_distributions, get_prog
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 27, in <module>
from pip._vendor import pkg_resources
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3018, in <module>
#_call_aside
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3004, in _call_aside
f(*args, **kwargs)
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 3046, in _initialize_master_working_set
dist.activate(replace=False)
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2578, in activate
declare_namespace(pkg)
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2152, in declare_namespace
_handle_ns(packageName, path_item)
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2092, in _handle_ns
_rebuild_mod_path(path, packageName, module)
File "/home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2121, in _rebuild_mod_path
orig_path.sort(key=position_in_sys_path)
AttributeError: '_NamespacePath' object has no attribute 'sort'
I have tried running pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools according to some answers, but every pip command gives me the error. I'm stuck and can't do anything.
What could have caused it, and how can this be fixed?
I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 with Python 3.5.2

I met the same issue with python 3.5.2 and pip3 (9.0.1). And I fixed it by following this workaround: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/885#issuecomment-307696027
More specifically, I edited line #2121~2122 of this file: "sudo vim /usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/pkg_resources/__init__.py"
#orig_path.sort(key=position_in_sys_path)
#module.__path__[:] = [_normalize_cached(p) for p in orig_path]
orig_path_t = list(orig_path)
orig_path_t.sort(key=position_in_sys_path)
module.__path__[:] = [_normalize_cached(p) for p in orig_path_t]

Upgrading setuptools worked for me:
pip3 install --upgrade setuptools

This may sound weird, because I had this issue and I had tried everything mentioned in SO and GitHub issues. But then I installed pip with easyinstall and pip command is working. Maybe now there are 2 pip packages now. But error is gone.
easy_install pip

I'm using virtualenv and upgrading setuptools didn't work for me. What did work was this workaround:
pip uninstall setuptools -y && pip install setuptools

Yet another answer, but following is the one which eventually fixed the issue for me. Since pip was compromised I was unable to use it for upgrading itself or setuptools and also using easy_install was bringing up the same issue. So I tried to install pip using Python.
The answer:
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python get-pip.py
pip install --upgrade setuptools

try -
pip install -U pip
pip install -U setuptools
if editing __init__.py doesnt help.

I tried most of the above suggested solutions but nothing worked as pip3 was totally non-functional, then I found this:
https://deeptalk.lambdalabs.com/t/trying-to-uninstall-tensorflow-or-matplotlib-pip-package-throws-attributeerror--namespacepath-object-has-no-attribute-sort/310
I think this is probably the issue with most of us. I tried the suggested solution and pip3 is working again.
For me the matplotlib was not present in dist-packages but instead it was in site-packages, so the command that worked for me was:
sudo rm ~/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/matplotlib-3.0.3-py3.5-nspkg.pth
ofcourse you need to change the above path based on your version and location of matplotlib.

This probably means that your dependencies got messed up.
Try to uninstall pip3 from scratch and it should work.
In case it doesn't work, delete your pip installation. In your case:
rm -r /home/alexg/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/pip/
And to be sure next time, best to work with virtual environments :)

Try :
sudo easy_install pip
and then
sudo easy_install setuptools
It probably happends because of messed-up dependencies.

I had the same problem using poetry.
Running
poetry run pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
instead of
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
fixed the issue.

I had this same problem, and was unable to run any command with pip3 (including any commands like pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools).
Only fix I've found was to completely uninstall and re-install python 3 (sudo apt-get remove python3, sudo apt-get install python3, sudo apt install python3-pip) and now pip3 is working properly again.

After trying all kinds of methods, such as reinstall pip, setuptools, and still can't fix the problem.
I follow the instruction of https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/4216#issuecomment-286348680 and only with an external warning.
After that, I use pip to uninstall matplotlib.
Finally, all things seem okay.

I had this problem consistently (and used the workaround below to use pip in the python3 interpreter). To my surprise, after uninstalling all versions of numpy and reinstalling the latest one, pip began working again. I can't say for sure what happened, but it might be something to try if everything else has failed.
The workaround (pieced together from several sources I don't recall) is
start python3
import pip twice (getting an error the first time)
use pip.main within the interpreter
Here is a transcript:
>>> import pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/__init__.py",
__import__(vendored_name, globals(), locals(), level=0)
ImportError: No module named 'pip._vendor.pkg_resources'
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/__init__.py", line 13,
from pip.exceptions import InstallationError, CommandError, Pi
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/exceptions.py", line 6,
from pip._vendor.six import iteritems
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/__init__.py", l
vendored("pkg_resources")
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/__init__.py", l
__import__(modulename, globals(), locals(), level=0)
.
etc
.
AttributeError: '_NamespacePath' object has no attribute 'sort'
>>> import pip
>>> pkgs = ['asciiplotlib']
>>> pip.main(['install'] + pkgs + ['--upgrade'])
Collecting asciiplotlib
Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/15/c5/46a2d
Installing collected packages: asciiplotlib
Successfully installed asciiplotlib-0.1.8

I fixed this with follows:
$curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
For python2:
$python get-pip.py
For python3:
$python3 get-pip.py
Now it works for me.

None of the other posted answered worked for me, but running the follow command solved t:
sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove python3-pkg-resources python3-setuptools

This is for windows users, who installed WinPython
We couldn't even run pip command. Uninstall and install of Anaconda 3
We faced similar error. Finally we removed folder "Python" which is inside C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\ and removed folder "conda" & "packages" which is inside C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\conda.
Then it worked.

Troubles installing mysqlclient with pip3

I'm trying to set up a python 3.6 environment with Django. The installation instructions say I should install mysqlclient to be able to connect to mySQL. I get this:
dennis#django:~$ sudo -H pip3 install mysqlclient
Collecting mysqlclient
Using cached mysqlclient-1.3.10.tar.gz
Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
/bin/sh: 1: mysql_config: not found
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
File "/tmp/pip-build-4jiw3hvk/mysqlclient/setup.py", line 17, in <module>
metadata, options = get_config()
File "/tmp/pip-build-4jiw3hvk/mysqlclient/setup_posix.py", line 44, in get_config
libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
File "/tmp/pip-build-4jiw3hvk/mysqlclient/setup_posix.py", line 26, in mysql_config
raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
OSError: mysql_config not found
----------------------------------------
Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-build-4jiw3hvk/mysqlclient/
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 9.0.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
mySQL is properly installed. What should be in the mysql_config file?
When I try to upgrade pip3 I get this:
dennis#django:~$ sudo -H pip3 install --upgrade pip3
Collecting pip3
Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pip3 (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for pip3
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 9.0.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
After installing mysqlclient with pip3, I noticed that the module was installed in the python3.5 directory instead of in the python3.6 directory so when I tried to import the MySQLdb module running python3.6, it was not found
dennis#django:~/python_db$ python
Python 3.6.0+ (default, Feb 4 2017, 11:11:46)
[GCC 5.4.1 20161202] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import MySQLdb
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'MySQLdb'
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 63, in apport_excepthook
from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 5, in <module>
from apport.report import Report
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 30, in <module>
import apport.fileutils
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/fileutils.py", line 23, in <module>
from apport.packaging_impl import impl as packaging
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/packaging_impl.py", line 23, in <module>
import apt
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/__init__.py", line 23, in <module>
import apt_pkg
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'apt_pkg'
Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'MySQLdb'
>>>
I then reran using python 3.5 and it was found. How do I install modules using pip3 into the 3.6 directory?

If you're using Mac OS, try this:
brew install mysql
If you're using Ubuntu14/16, try this:
sudo apt install libmysqlclient-dev
and one more:
pip3 can be updated with sudo pip3 install -U pip

LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib pip install mysqlclient

In my case the issue was solved by doing the following:
sudo aptitude install libmysqlclient-dev
As I was using Python 3.x, the following was also necessary:
sudo aptitude install python3-dev

If you're running MAMP on OSX, do this:
export PATH=$PATH:/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin

In Debian Stretch the required package name seems to have changed to default-libmysqlclient-dev
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/default-libmysqlclient-dev

you can try this to install mysql to a particular python directory, for example w/ python 3.6
sudo python3.6 /usr/bin/pip3 install mysqlclient

Looking over this old question (while looking for something else), I observe that the problem could be that the directory containing mysql_config was not in the current $PATH. Apparently that's what the install script uses to try to find it. It's possible for "mysql to be installed," but not on the $PATH – or for the $PATH to refer to the wrong version.

pip upgrade uninstalled itself

I used pip today for the first time in a while and I got the helpful message
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 9.0.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
So, I went ahead and
pip install --upgrade pip
but things did not go according to plan...
Collecting pip
Downloading pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.3MB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 1.3MB 510kB/s
Installing collected packages: pip
Found existing installation: pip 8.1.1
Uninstalling pip-8.1.1:
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 209, in main
status = self.run(options, args)
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 317, in run
prefix=options.prefix_path,
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py", line 726, in install
requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 746, in uninstall
paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 115, in remove
renames(path, new_path)
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 267, in renames
shutil.move(old, new)
File "//anaconda/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 303, in move
os.unlink(src)
OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.1.dist-info/DESCRIPTION.rst'
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 9.0.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
And now it seems that pip is completely gone from my computer:
$ pip
-bash: //anaconda/bin/pip: No such file or directory
Is pip really gone, that is, did it really uninstall and then fail to reinstall, or did something just get unlinked? How can I avoid this issue in the future? Because I can imagine I will need to upgrade pip again at some point...

Python comes with a module for installing pip without needing to pull anything from the internet called ensurepip. It's pretty straightforward to use, just run the following in a terminal:
python -m ensurepip
From there you can upgrade pip to the latest the standard way. Additional documentation is available here https://docs.python.org/3/library/ensurepip.html.

You can reinstall pip with conda:
conda install pip
Looks like you need to have root rights:
sudo conda install pip

You can use curl to reinstall pip via the Python Packaging Authority website:
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python

Pip list crashes with an AssertionError

What might be the problem below? It looks like there is a bug in pip.
I installed pip yesterday using brew. Prior to that, I had installed
most python packages with $ python setup.py install
steves-MacBook-Pro:server steve$ pip -V
pip 1.4.1 from /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg (python 2.7)
steves-MacBook-Pro:server steve$ pip list
altgraph (0.9)
bdist-mpkg (0.4.4)
...
...(a bunch of python packages omitted here for brevity)
...
...
requests (2.0.0)
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 134, in main
status = self.run(options, args)
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/list.py", line 80, in run
self.run_listing(options)
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/list.py", line 127, in run_listing
self.output_package_listing(installed_packages)
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/list.py", line 136, in output_package_listing
if dist_is_editable(dist):
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/util.py", line 347, in dist_is_editable
req = FrozenRequirement.from_dist(dist, [])
File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg/pip/__init__.py", line 194, in from_dist
assert len(specs) == 1 and specs[0][0] == '=='
AssertionError

Using modern Ubuntu, I had the same problem and was able to fix it using the instructions in this comment.
The problem, as I understand it, is that pip as provided by Ubuntu is old, and also cannot update itself (since it's managed by apt, not pip). One solution is to remove the Ubuntu version of pip and install the latest.
In short:
sudo apt-get remove python-pip
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py
This will install pip to /usr/local/bin, so you'll want to add that to your path.

This can be caused by an old version of pip.
Make sure your setuptools and pip are up to date:
sudo pip install --upgrade setuptools
sudo pip install --upgrade pip

pip install pygtk not working

Any ideas as to what this means? I don't know if this helps, but it seems like most things I try to pip install don't install correctly and I get errors.
BenjaminsMacBook:~ OwlFace$ pip install pygtk
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 2603, in <module>
working_set.require(__requires__)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 666, in require
needed = self.resolve(parse_requirements(requirements))
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 565, in resolve
raise DistributionNotFound(req) # XXX put more info here
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==1.4.1
BenjaminsMacBook:~ OwlFace$

pygtk install script can't find pip 1.4.1
you have to install pip 1.4.1

You can check my answer here. Basically, to fix it, run:
easy_install --upgrade pip

There's a Dependency of pip required version = 1.4.1,
$ which pip
/usr/local/bin/pip
if no output here probably you dont have pip installed
$ pip --version
pip 1.4.1 from /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)
if your version is not 1.4.1, update pip
Your error shows that you have pip installed, so check the version
BenjaminsMacBook:~ OwlFace$ pip install pygtk
Traceback (most recent call last):
===> File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
For pip1.4.1 visit: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip/