'pyvenv not working because ensurepip is not available

I upgraded from ubuntu 14.04 to ubuntu 16.04 a few days ago. When I try to create a virtual env by using

pyvenv .venv

python3 -m venv .venv

There is an error:

The virtual environment was not created successfully because ensurepip is not
available.  On Debian/Ubuntu systems, you need to install the python3-venv
package using the following command.

    apt-get install python3-venv

You may need to use sudo with that command.  After installing the python3-venv
package, recreate your virtual environment.

Failing command: ['/home/user/.venv/bin/python3.5', '-Im', 'ensurepip', '--upgrade', '--default-pip']

I tried running both

sudo apt-get install python3-venv

and

sudo apt-get install python3.5-venv

but it did not solve my problem.

python virtualenv

Solution 1:^[1]

try installing python3.6-venv:

sudo apt-get install python3.6-venv

Solution 2:^[2]

It seems that it was a locale problem. Solved by executing:

export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

found on this thread Python locale error: unsupported locale setting

Solution 3:^[3]

One of the other answers fixed it for me last time, but with Python 3.7 I had to do:

apt install python3-pip python3-setuptools python3.7-venv

Followed by

python3.7 -m venv /path/to/venv

Solution 4:^[4]

Under Windows Linux Subsystem and Ubuntu 18.04, this was caused by my not having upgraded recently.

I ran:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Then sudo apt install python3-venv worked.

Note that I had also tried the UTF-8 solution beforehand (I made it part of my .bashrc), so that could have been a contributing factor.

Solution 5:^[5]

Resolved similar problems on Ubuntu18 when came upon this answer. It is similar to the one that worked for @Niko Rikken, except it doesn't really need any new PPA's and "python3.8-distutils" package. I was installing new python3.8 environment with venv and I already had "python3-venv" installed and up to date, so my solution was to install only "python3.8-venv":

% sudo apt-get install python3.8-venv

And that got this lines working:

% python3.8 -m venv ~/envs/new_env
% source ~/envs/new_env/bin/activate

Solution 6:^[6]

In my case the next steps worked:

Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS

 $ sudo apt-get install python3-venv python3.7-venv
 $ python3.7 -m venv [your_path_to_virtual_env_here]

Solution 7:^[7]

In case this helps anyone down the line, I was getting the same error on Ubuntu 18.04. Setting the locales didn't work and trying to install python3-venv gave the error:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-venv
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 python3-venv : Depends: python3.6-venv (>= 3.6.5-2~) but it is not going to be installed
                Depends: python3 (= 3.6.5-3) but 3.6.7-1~18.04 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

And it looks like the apt repository had two versions of python:

$ apt list python3 -a
python3/bionic-updates,now 3.6.7-1~18.04 amd64 [installed]
python3/bionic 3.6.5-3 amd64

I tried to install Python3.6.5-3 but apt wanted to uninstall every dependency. I was able to solve the problem by installing Python3.7 and creating the venv with that:

$ sudo apt-get install python3.7 python3.7-venv
$ python3.7 -m venv my_venv

Solution 8:^[8]

I encountered this problem on Ubuntu 18.04 for the recent release of Python-3.8. My solution was to add the Deadsnakes PPA which supplies the required python3.8-distutils package. The python3.8-venv package is already in the repository. Thanks to this blogpost:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.8
sudo apt install python3.8-distutils
sudo apt install python3.8-venv

Note: This is only a temporary solution. In the near future the required python3.8-distutils package will probably be available in the default Ubuntu repository.

Edit:

For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS the python3-distutils package is based on Python 3.8. As of yet there is no Python 3.8 package distutils package available for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

As mentioned in other comments on this thread, distutils might not be required. It was for my use-case, but please consider that solution before adding additional PPA's.

Solution 9:^[9]

First, make a directory :

mkdir testing

Then, moved to this directory named testing :

cd testing

When you type following command in this directory:

python3 -m venv env

You got error like :

The virtual environment was not created successfully because ensurepip is not available. On Debian/Ubuntu systems, you need to install the python3-venv package using the following command.

apt install python3.8-venv

Type the following command but before that keep an eye on the version of python you installed on the machine; in my case its python3.8

sudo apt install python3.8-venv

Now, we can create a virtual environment and store its tools in the "bhandari" folder .

python3 -m venv bhandari

Note: you can named this "bhandari" folder; anyname you like( Standard practice is to name it "env" ...)

Now to activate your virtual environment, from the directory of your folder, type the following command this will activate our virtual environment in the “bhandari” folder

source bhandari/bin/activate

If you have successfully activated your virtual environment, you should see the (bhandari) word indicating that we are working in a virtual environment.

After this, we can install anything that will be isolated from the rest of the system....

Solution 10:^[10]

Try the following commands:

sudo apt install python-virtualenv
virtualenv --python=python3.6 myenv

These commands might work for you.

If you get any error like E: Unable to locate package python3-venv Then try the following commands:

sudo apt install python3.6-venv

Solution 11:^[11]

Python updated or Default python changed and venv already installed

the venv installed on your system is installed by your previous python version(let say python3.6). that's why venv is not working with current python version(lets say 3.8).

so first check your default python or python3 version,( suppose ur current version is python3.8).

reinstall virtual environment by mentioning current python version(3.8) as follow

sudo apt-get install python3.xx-venv        >> replace xx with your current/default python version

if this helps you plz upvote, I'm new on this platform.

Solution 12:^[12]

Try : python3.* -m venv myvenv -

And don't forget to replace * with your specific version of python

Solution 13:^[13]

I was faced with the same problem and I am searching for a solution. It is about the problem:

ensurepip is disabled in Debian/Ubuntu for the system python.

And this my solution:

python3 -m venv myvenv --without-pip --system-site-packages

Solution 14:^[14]

If your intention was to get python3.8 incl. pip and venv on Ubuntu 18.04:

sudo apt install python3.8 python3.8-venv python3-pip # there is no python3.8-pip package
python3.8 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python --version # -> python 3.8.0
pip --version # -> pip 9.0.1 from /home/user/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages (python 3.8)

Solution 15:^[15]

Try installing python3-distutils as well.
Altogether, for python 3.8, the following worked for me.

$ apt-get install python3.8 python3.8-venv python3.8-distutils python3.8-dev

Solution 16:^[16]

I had the same problem - the python env has 2 versions for 2.7 and 3.6.

All you need to do is:

Install the latest version of pip by installing pyenv installer
Make sure you follow the steps of installing pyenv found here

Good Luck!

Solution 17:^[17]

I had the same problem for an existing project when executing python3 -m venv venv. I had just updated my Ubuntu and Python versions. After removing the already existing venv folder the issue was solved. (I have also tried the UTF-8 solution.)

Solution 18:^[18]

My problem were related to permissions and ownership. I was logged in with a different user as the owner of the current directory, which led to this error. After reviewing and fixing all permissions I was able to install the venv regularl

Solution 19:^[19]

I just ran across this issue on several Debian/Ubuntu systems. Same error as above.

Findings

I tried to create a venv manually with:

python -m venv venvdir

This failed in the same way as others have mentioned. But it did create the shell of the venv. So I tried running ensurepip:

venvdir/bin/python -m ensurepip

Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/runpy.py", line 197, in _run_module_as_main                       
        return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,                                             
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/runpy.py", line 87, in _run_code                                  
        exec(code, run_globals)                                                                
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/ensurepip/__main__.py", line 5, in <module>                       
        sys.exit(ensurepip._main())                                                            
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 266, in _main                        
        return _bootstrap(                                                                     
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 166, in _bootstrap                  
         copy_wheels(dependencies, venv_wheel_dir, sys.path)                                    
    File "/usr/lib/python3.9/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 144, in copy_wheels                  
        assert len(wheel_names) == 1, wheel_names                                            

AssertionError: ['/usr/share/python-wheels/pyparsing-2.2.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl', '/usr/s
hare/python-wheels/pyparsing-2.4.7-py2.py3-none-any.whl']

This seemed odd. A quick look into /usr/share/python-wheels/ revealed - indeed - multiple versions of the same wheel as the error suggests. I have no clue why ensurepip is also ensuring that it only finds one wheel file, go figure.

Solution

A check of dpkg -S /usr/share/python-wheels indicated that the python-pip-whl package is the source of those files. This appears to be true for both Ubuntu and Debian.

So, I did:

cd /usr/share
sudo mv python-wheels python-wheels.old
sudo apt reinstall python-pip-whl

And it worked - no more errors. There are no longer duplicates in /usr/share/python-wheels

Absolutely no clue how there were duplicates or why ensurepip is so sensitive to duplicates there... Probably a package upgrade gone wrong somewhere.

Solution 20:^[20]

All of these suggestions didn't help me.

$ apt list python3 -a
python3/now 3.6.7-1~18.04 amd64 [installed,local]
python3/bionic 3.6.5-3 amd64

So I did: sudo apt-get install python3/bionic

Now I have python 3.6.5 and apt-list showed a better list: $ apt list python3 -a python3/bionic 3.6.5-3 amd64

With sudo apt-get install python3-venv/bionic I could install pythno3-venv and everything worked.

Solution 21:^[21]

In my case, running sudo apt-get install python3.8-venv succeeds but it shows the same error when running python3 -m venv .venv.

Finally, this command works out without changing locale.

python3.8 -c 'import venv; venv.create(".venv", with_pip=True)'

Solution 22:^[22]

This worked for me... Firstly, I ran

sudo apt-get update

Then

sudo apt-get install -y python3-venv zip

Solution 23:^[23]

Here is my answer for Ubuntu 14.04. I was able to make venv and pip work with various Python versions. Details:

3.4: Ubuntu 14.04 has Python 3.4 (as package python3.4 etc.). It works:
```
$ sudo apt-get install python3.4 python3.4-dev python3.4-venv gcc libc6-dev
$ mkdir /tmp/try3.4
$ python3.4 -m venv /tmp/try3.4
$ . /tmp/try/bin/activate
(try3.4) $ pip install print-hello-world
...
(try3.4) $ print-hello-world
Hello World!
```
If python3.4-venv is removed from the apt-get install command above, then python3.4 -m venv displays the same error message as in the question. However, the error message mentions apt-get install python3-venv to solve it, but that doesn't work, there is no such package. (The correct package name is python3.4-venv.)

Please note that Python 3.4 is fairly old, and some Python packages available in PyPI (via pip) don't work with it.

3.5: It can be installed from the deadsnakes repository. It works:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python3.5 python3.5-dev python3.5-venv gcc libc6-dev
$ mkdir /tmp/try3.5
$ python3.5 -m venv /tmp/try
$ . /tmp/try/bin/activate
(try3.5) $ pip install print-hello-world
...
(try3.5) $ print-hello-world
Hello World!

3.6: Ditto, it can be installed from the deadsnakes repository. It works:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python3.6 python3.6-dev python3.6-venv gcc libc6-dev
$ mkdir /tmp/try3.6
$ python3.6 -m venv /tmp/try3.6
$ . /tmp/try3.6/bin/activate
(try3.6) $ pip install print-hello-world
...
(try3.6) $ print-hello-world
Hello World!

3.7: It doesn't work, because pip install fails with import _ssl, and python3.7 in the deadsnakes repo doesn't have that module, because Ubuntu 14.04 ships with on old version of OpenSSL which Python 3.7 doesn't support. See more details in this bug.
3.8--: No Ubuntu 14.04 package for these Python versions in the Ubuntu or deadsnakes repositories.

Solution 24:^[24]

Ran into the same issue recently. None of the solutions mentioned above worked for me. I eventually get it to working by installing pip3.

apt-get install python3-pip

# then run
python3.8 -m venv env

Solution 25:^[25]

If you came across this issue while trying to run python -m build to build a python package, this means there probabaly is a syntax issue in your setup.cfg or setup.py file that causes an error creating the temporary venv required for installing dependencies.

Using pip wheels . will give you a less misleading error message.

Solution 26:^[26]

For Linux, it is not installed by default you have to install venv

// at first check python version
python --version

// install 
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.8-venv
sudo apt install python3.8-distutils

// create new env
python3 -m venv project-name
source project-name/bin/activate

Solution 27:^[27]

In my case, the command failed because I was still in a virtual env but did not notice it very quickly.

If it is the case, try calling deactivate.

Solution 28:^[28]

I do not have sudo rights and I have to use python3.5:

Install virtualenv: pip3 virtualenv
Create virtualenv without pip: python3 -m venv --without-pip <path>
Downloaded the proper pip bootstrap: https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/3.5/get-pip.py
Run: <path>/bin/python3 get-pip.py

I did 'source <path>/bin/activate' and I got a working environment.

Solution 29:^[29]

I had to mention the specific version of python and replace python3.10 with you version

 $ sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
 $ sudo apt-get install python3.10-venv

Creating a virtual environment

$ python3.10 -m venv --system-site-packages Project_Name

Solution 30:^[30]

sudo apt-get update

Worked for me.

Edit: I would love to know what exactly what was the issue, but I don't know. I tried running commands as described by the questioner and it was giving error then I updated and it worked. :-D

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	jnicho02
Solution 2	Community
Solution 3	Aaron F
Solution 4	Eponymous
Solution 5
Solution 6	Eduardo RE
Solution 7
Solution 8
Solution 9	Blairg23
Solution 10	Jake Peralta
Solution 11	RavinderSinghPB
Solution 12	Alexandre B.
Solution 13	flaxel
Solution 14	langlauf.io
Solution 15	xanjay
Solution 16	Rann Lifshitz
Solution 17	Sparwer
Solution 18	DarwinsBuddy
Solution 19	Daniel Jewell
Solution 20	Stefan
Solution 21	Wang
Solution 22	itslogique
Solution 23	pts
Solution 24	jdsantiagojr
Solution 25	toing_toing
Solution 26	MD SHAYON
Solution 27	SylvainD
Solution 28	uuu777
Solution 29	Udesh Ranjan
Solution 30

'pyvenv not working because ensurepip is not available

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