Python pip install fails: invalid command egg_info

Question

I find that recently often when I try to install a Python package using pip, I get the error(s) below.

I found a reference online that one has to use "python2 setup.py install" from the download directory, and indeed find that this will then work if I manually find and download the package (from pypi).

But, I don't know where pip is downloading packages to, and/or why it is failing in this manner.

I tried to do a pip upgrade, but it also failed in a similar manner, with a bunch of "Unknown distribution option" errors (entry_points, zip_safe, test_suite, tests_require)!

• pip 1.0.1
• ActivePython 2.7

Trying to use ActiveState's pypm fails, because they have a smaller library base, and it doesn't include these packages.

C:\test>pip install requests-oauth
Downloading/unpacking requests-oauth
  Downloading requests-oauth-0.4.1.tar.gz
  Running setup.py egg_info for package requests-oauth
    E:\Plang\ActivePython\lib\distutils\dist.py:267: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'zip_safe'
      warnings.warn(msg)
    E:\Plang\ActivePython\lib\distutils\dist.py:267: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'install_requires'
      warnings.warn(msg)
    usage: -c [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
       or: -c --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
       or: -c --help-commands
       or: -c cmd --help

    error: invalid command 'egg_info'
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    E:\Plang\ActivePython\lib\distutils\dist.py:267: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'zip_safe'
  warnings.warn(msg)

E:\Plang\ActivePython\lib\distutils\dist.py:267: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'install_requires'
  warnings.warn(msg)

usage: -c [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
   or: -c --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
   or: -c --help-commands
   or: -c cmd --help

error: invalid command 'egg_info'

Answer 1

I was facing the same issue and I tried all the above answers. But unfortunately, none of the above worked.

As a note, I finally solve this by pip uninstall distribute.

Answer 2

I just convert liquidki's answer into Ubuntu commands. On an Ubuntu based system it works!:

sudo apt -y install python-pip
pip install -U pip
sudo pip install -U setuptools

Answer 3

I also meet a similar error message "Command 'python setup.py egg_info' failed with error code 1" when I want to install cairosvg with command pip install cairosvg in a virtual environment.

Then I have tried both pip install --upgrade pip and pip install --upgrade setuptools before running pip3 install cairosvg, but I still get this error.

I can get rid of this error with sudo in front of the installation command : sudo pip install cairosvg. But note that the command with sudo will install the package for the system python rather than the virtual environment.

So, I further check the error message and find that I get the error while installing the cairocffi. Then I install a certain version of cairocffi (refer to this answer) before install cairosvg. That is how I solve my problem.

Answer 4

Bear in mind you may have to do pip install --upgrade Distribute if you have it installed already and your pip may be called pip2 for Python2 on some systems (it is on mine).