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 l         


        

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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!

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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 && sudo apt install python-pip --reinstall

Python3:

 python3 -m pip uninstall pip && sudo apt install python3-pip --reinstall

Answer 6

For Python version 2.7 @Anthony solution works perfect, by changing python3 to python as follows:

sudo python -m pip uninstall pip && sudo apt install python-pip --reinstall