ImportError: No module named datetime

Question

When I upgrade my Ubuntu into 14.04 from 12.04, this time I get this error:

 ImportError: No module named datetime

Yes, while I'm upgrading it and also after it finish upgrading, the error is still there. — akbsmile, Sep 25 '14 at 05:31

score 60 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 22 '14 at 02:38

60

This happened to me when I created a virtualenv and then upgraded from 12.04 to 14.04.

I had to delete my virtualenv and recreate it, and after doing that, everything worked again.

answered Oct 22 '14 at 02:38

erjiang

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I had the same problem after I did apt-get dist-upgrade my Debian. Solution was to delete the virtualenv and recreate it. – user4157482 Oct 22 '14 at 15:57
2

Thanks for the hint! Simply running `mkvirtualenv $my_venv_name` solved it for me. – Chriki Jan 20 '15 at 17:31
4

same happened for me after upgrading from 14.04 to 16.04 – philx_x May 26 '16 at 16:16

score 40 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:22

40

Just run this command. It worked like a charm!

$ cp /usr/bin/python2.7 $(which python2.7)

This just happened to me after the 14.10 update, and it seems to be because my virtual environments have old copies of /usr/bin/python2.7 that — unlike the new binary — do not include datetime built-in, and so get an error when they cannot find it on disk anywhere. The new interpreter seems to import it without any file I/O (try running it under strace to check).

More info here

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:22

Community

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answered Apr 01 '15 at 07:52

artisare

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I took this a step further, "rm venv/bin/python*", then reinitialize with "virtualenv venv". Less destructive compared to rebuilding the whole venv. – Kevin Aug 07 '15 at 15:50
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**You deserve a coffee! Thanks :)** - Also caused by upgrading underlying `Ubuntu 14.04` to `Ubuntu 16.04.1` without touching the virtual environment. – Flatron Sep 19 '16 at 08:53

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 05:53

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I tried to re-install it by these steps.

1. remove the old version of venv
2. virtualenv venv
3. .venv/activate/bin
4. pip install -r requirements/ requirements.txt

And it works perfectly. Thanks guys :)

answered Sep 25 '14 at 05:53

akbsmile

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score 10 · Answer 4 · answered May 18 '15 at 11:43

10

just reinitialize the virtualenv by:

cd <virtualenv-dir>
virtualenv .

answered May 18 '15 at 11:43

Hasan Ramezani

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This worked for me with one change. 'virtualenv .' gave me the error: 'IOError: [Errno 40] Too many levels of symbolic links' so I did: 'rm bin/python*' and then 'virtualenv .' succeeded. – saschwarz Oct 24 '16 at 15:00

score 8 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:22

8

If by chance you come across this error while trying to renew your LetsEncrypt certificate (like I did) I found the solution here:

https://askubuntu.com/a/850669/668101

Remove this folder and rerun LetsEncrypt and it will recreate all the relevant files and avoid the error from this thread.

rm ~/.local/share/letsencrypt -R

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:22

Community

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answered Mar 21 '17 at 19:18

dug

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Good tip! Thanks for the info!! The only thing is that the term "thread" doesn't really apply to StackOverflow as this is not a discussion forum, but a Q&A site :) Otherwise, this was really helpful! Thanks! – Daniel Gray Apr 03 '17 at 10:40

Seg-mel · Answer 6 · 2015-04-27T16:52:02.590

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If you use virtualenv, updating it might solve this issue

virtualenv /path/to/old/virtualenv/

edited Apr 27 '15 at 16:52

answered Apr 27 '15 at 15:12

Seg-mel

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score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 05:55

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Try...

>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
[... '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',...]

if lib-dynload not included in sys.path, You could not import datetime

check it!

answered Sep 25 '14 at 05:55

han058

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had to create the lib-dynload directory and copy paste contents of Python-2.7.*/build/lib.linux-***-2.7 into it – korwalskiy Nov 15 '19 at 12:09

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 17 '16 at 19:20

Same happened to me on upgrading Ubuntu from 14.04 to 15.10.

I solved it by upgrading pip and then removing and recreating the virtual env:

$ easy_install --upgrade pip
$ rmvirtualenv <my_virtual_env>
$ mkvirtualenv <my_virtual_env>

(I use virtualenvwrapper)

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 29 '16 at 06:23

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clear virtual env, consider VIRTUAL is the name of the virtual environment

virtualenv --clear VIRTUAL
Now activate it and install from requirements.txt

source VIRTUAL/bin/activate pip install -r requirements.txt

answered Mar 29 '16 at 06:23

Aneesh R S

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered May 11 '17 at 07:29

0

If you face datetime import issue using IntelliJ PyCharm or Idea and from Console/Terminal it works fine, you should just duplicate/recreate running configurations.

answered May 11 '17 at 07:29

Artur Samigullin

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 27 '20 at 18:31

I ran across this error with LetsEncrypt trying to renew and in order to fix I had to go back to the letsencrypt site and reinstall certbot because they have changed how it works on Ubuntu.

https://certbot.eff.org/lets-encrypt/ubuntuxenial-nginx

Here are the commands I ended up running, your commands may be different.

snap was not installed in my Ubuntu instance

sudo apt install snapd 
sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core

remove the old certbot

sudo apt-get remove certbot
sudo snap install --classic certbot

make the "certbot" command work with old config

sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

run a couple tests

sudo certbot --nginx
sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Actually renew and restart server

sudo certbot renew
sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart nginx

Update cronjob

Then I needed to update my cronjob so that it used sudo certbot renew instead of the full path to certbot that I was using before.

crontab -e

contents of crontab

42 3,15 * * * sudo certbot renew --quiet --no-self-upgrade
24 1,18 * * * sudo certbot renew --quiet --no-self-upgrade
5 4 * * 7 sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart nginx