pip install jupyter: “Unable to locate finder for

Question

I'm trying to install jupyter to use the IPython Notebook under Windows. However, if I run pip install jupyter I'm getting

  Using cached pyzmq-15.4.0.zip
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): wcwidth in c:\users\stefan\appdata\local\programs\python\python36\lib\site-packages (from prompt-toolkit<2.0.0,>=1.0.0->jupyter-console->jupyter)
Installing collected packages: nbformat, nbconvert, pyzmq, jupyter-client, tornado, ipykernel, notebook, widgetsnbextension, ipywidgets, qtconsole, jupyter-console, jupyter
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\basecommand.py", line 215, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\commands\install.py", line 317, in run
    prefix=options.prefix_path,
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_set.py", line 742, in install
    **kwargs
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_install.py", line 831, in install
    self.move_wheel_files(self.source_dir, root=root, prefix=prefix)
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_install.py", line 1032, in move_wheel_files
    isolated=self.isolated,
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\wheel.py", line 493, in move_wheel_files
    maker.make_multiple(['%s = %s' % kv for kv in console.items()])
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\scripts.py", line 383, in make_multiple
    filenames.extend(self.make(specification, options))
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\scripts.py", line 372, in make
    self._make_script(entry, filenames, options=options)
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\scripts.py", line 276, in _make_script
    self._write_script(scriptnames, shebang, script, filenames, ext)
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\scripts.py", line 212, in _write_script
    launcher = self._get_launcher('t')
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\scripts.py", line 351, in _get_launcher
    result = finder(distlib_package).find(name).bytes
  File "C:\Users\Stefan\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\distlib\resources.py", line 324, in finder
    raise DistlibException('Unable to locate finder for %r' % package)
pip._vendor.distlib.DistlibException: Unable to locate finder for 'pip._vendor.distlib'

Any idea what the problem here is?

Answer 1

Try uninstalling pip and installing get-pip.py. It appears to be a bug in the 3.6 version for Windows. https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/3964

Answer 2

uninstall current pip by typing:

python -m pip uninstall pip setuptools

download get-pip.py from https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py and run it:

python get-pip.py