PIP Install Numpy throws an error "ascii codec can't decode byte 0xe2"

Question

I have a freshly installed Ubuntu on a freshly built computer. I just installed python-pip using apt-get. Now when I try to pip install Numpy and Pandas, it gives the following error.

I've seen this error mentioned in quite a few places on SO and Google, but I haven't been able to find a solution. Some people mention it's a bug, some threads are just dead... What's going on?

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/pip", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('pip==1.5.4', 'console_scripts', 'pip')()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/__init__.py", line 185, in main
    return command.main(cmd_args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 161, in main
    text = '\n'.join(complete_log)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 72: ordinal not in range(128)

Are there non-ASCII characters in your hostname, home directory, &c.? Does setting `LC_ALL=C` make any difference? — Charles Duffy, Oct 20 '14 at 20:15
While this post is aimed at Amazon's EC2, it seems to be the same problem, and I find the answers more helpful: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19595944/trouble-installing-scipy-in-virtualenv-on-a-amazon-ec2-linux-micro-instance — BenjaminGolder, Dec 04 '14 at 12:07
I still do have a problem with the installation even though i have gotten numpy. Is there anyone else that have this problem? — eleijonmarck, Mar 19 '15 at 21:45
As OP, and 3 years later, I can say I have solved this by migrating to Haskell ;) — Josh.F, Aug 07 '17 at 22:50

score 45 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 20 '14 at 20:11

45

I had this exact problem recently and used

apt-get install python-numpy

This adds numpy to your system python interpreter. I may have had to do the same for matplotlib. To use in a virtualenv, you have to create your environment using the

--system-site-packages

option

http://www.scipy.org/install.html

answered Oct 20 '14 at 20:11

Jeff M.

1,037
10
7

2

Thanks! Also, I found that if python-dev doesn't come stock on the computer, you need that too – Josh.F Oct 20 '14 at 20:16
Yeah. I remember that now.. Good catch. – Jeff M. Oct 20 '14 at 20:17
3

You don't need to recreate your `virtualenv`, you can modify an existing one with `virtualenv VIRTUALENV_DIR --system-site-packages`. – fiatjaf Dec 06 '14 at 03:09
this fixed the same error I had with pip install scipy, thanks – hello_there_andy Jan 06 '15 at 22:46
3

Had same issue on Ubuntu server 14.02. `sudo apt-get install python2.7-dev` solved the issue. – baltasvejas May 25 '15 at 16:31
1

This solves the problem but I think you should at least mention you are making (all) system packages available, so the point of using virtualenv is partially defeated... – Mark Aug 02 '15 at 13:53

msemelman · Answer 2 · 2017-06-05T13:02:57.650

37

For me @Charles Duffy comment solved it. Put this in your env:

LC_ALL=C

You can add it to your .bashrc with a line like this:

export LC_ALL=C

But take in care that you'll affect all other programs. So you may want to use it just for the pip run:

$ LC_ALL=C pip install ...

edited Jun 05 '17 at 13:02

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:16

msemelman

2,877
1
21
19

1

This seems to be the correct answer. Using `--system-site-packages` was not an option for me. – moi Aug 11 '15 at 13:16
4

a better wording for you answer would be: add "export LC_ALL=C" to your ~/.bashrc – Gil Hiram Jun 28 '16 at 08:43
@GilHiram Depends on your shell type you may have to set up this env variable in other places. http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/50665/what-is-the-difference-between-interactive-shells-login-shells-non-login-shell – msemelman Jun 29 '16 at 13:51
1

The install didn't work for me both within, and outside a virtualenv so using `--system-site-packages` was not the right answer. I got it to work inside a virtualenv with `LC_ALL=C pip install ...`. – Arjun Sep 19 '16 at 16:55
what does `export LC_ALL=C` *mean* / do ? – WestCoastProjects Jun 27 '17 at 20:40
1

@javadba It forces applications to use the default language for output, and forces sorting to be bytewise. – radtek Jan 16 '18 at 01:25

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 17:40

12

Try updating pip:

pip install -U pip

answered Jul 23 '16 at 17:40

Noah

21,451
8
63
71

This worked for me on debian jessie inside of a venv. – kalebo May 04 '17 at 15:47

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 12 '15 at 19:14

7

I had that problem with matplotlib package. I had to execute:

export LC_ALL=C
pip install --upgrade setuptools

answered Aug 12 '15 at 19:14

max

9,708
15
89
144

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 01 '16 at 19:18

5

For me this was solved by ignoring a (presumably) corrupted cache with

pip install --no-cache-dir ...

as described here: https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/2674

answered Mar 01 '16 at 19:18

jvd10

1,826
17
17

Selah · Answer 6 · 2017-03-22T19:19:13.250

3

I had a similar error when running pip install pandas and it was due to a memory shortage. I increased the memory in my virtual machine to 4G and that fixed things.

edited Mar 22 '17 at 19:19

answered Dec 15 '14 at 22:03

Selah

7,728
9
48
60

1

Same here. Upgraded VM instance from 1 to a 2 gig RAM temporarily while installing. – tourdownunder Jan 15 '15 at 03:05

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 21 '15 at 07:00

3

A combination of

sudo apt-get install python-dev

and

export LC_ALL=C
pip install --upgrade setuptools

solved my problem.

edited Oct 21 '15 at 07:00

Kamil Budziewski

22,699
14
85
105

answered Oct 21 '15 at 06:36

Ali

31
1

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered May 23 '18 at 18:33

Recently, I stumbled upon the same problem This solved it for me:

              echo 'export LANG=en_US.UTF-8' >> ~/.bashrc
              echo 'export LANGUAGE=en_US:en' >> ~/.bashrc
              echo 'export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8' >> ~/.bashrc
              sudo apt-get install language-pack-en

Note,

I already had python-numpy and python-dev installed. Even this may be causing a problem on your system. You can also export LC_ALL=C instead of en_US.UTF-8(or any other language)

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 01 '18 at 08:44

3

When running in a docker container, this fixed it for me (on the project django-postgrespool, but this should also work here).

# Set the locale
RUN sed -i -e 's/# en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen && \
    locale-gen
ENV LANG en_US.UTF-8  
ENV LANGUAGE en_US:en  
ENV LC_ALL en_US.UTF-8

see https://stackoverflow.com/a/28406007/1876203

answered Jun 01 '18 at 08:44

Jan DB

355
2
6

1

`locale-gen en_US.UTF-8` worked for me as well! Or `RUN locale-gen en_US.UTF-8` in Dockerfile – Barmaley Dec 01 '18 at 00:23

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 20 '14 at 08:46

1

In 'site-packages' directory, make 'sitecustomize.py' like this

import sys
sys.setdefaultencoding("utf-8")

Now you can get the file 'pip.log'

answered Nov 20 '14 at 08:46

Toby Seo

457
1
4
14

This is only an indirect answer, but it teaches something and does not deserve to be downvoted. – user1158559 Mar 03 '16 at 17:05

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 16 '15 at 08:09

1

try sudo apt-get install python-numpy . It worked out for me and same can be used for scipy,pandas etc by replacing them in place of numpy. (Y)

answered Sep 16 '15 at 08:09

Tavleen

11
3

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 12 '18 at 04:05

1

@OSX Users: Add the following lines to your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"

Execute the scripts using source ~/.profile or source ~/.bashrc

answered Feb 12 '18 at 04:05

Nikhil

1,054
9
9

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 04 '15 at 01:21

0

If you want the pip version of numpy, you can build the dependencies for the package and then install it using pip

sudo apt-get build-dep python-numpy
pip install numpy

This should install everything needed at system level to install the package.

answered Dec 04 '15 at 01:21

arinarmo

375
1
11

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Mar 05 '16 at 00:11

0

Had a similar problem on a Jetson TK1 with Ubuntu.

Works fine with apt-get install python-pandas

answered Mar 05 '16 at 00:11

rafaelvalle

6,683
3
34
36

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Aug 07 '17 at 21:24

So many answers and none worked for me even though some clearly worked for other people. But I then figured out what my problem was, so I'll just add it to the collection:

dpkg-reconfigure locales
# enable the "en-US.UTF-8" locale
# when asked for a default, no need to define one

The thing is, I was working inside a Debian Stretch linux container that happened to not have any UTF-8 locales installed, probably because I downloaded a minimal stock image. With this UTF-8 locale now installed, pip properly installed numpy and other packages.

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Aug 11 '17 at 20:55

In my case I had just installed Python from source (on a remote machine where I am not sudo). For whatever reason, pip was on some really old version. So after:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

I was able to install numpy and everything I wanted without trouble.

Eleven · Answer 17 · 2017-08-22T20:22:50.583

0

I met the similar problem. I tried:

export LC_ALL=C
pip install --upgrade setuptools

But it did not solve the problem, but another error came up:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'rollback'

Then I tried:

pip install -U pip

Then the problem was solved.

edited Aug 22 '17 at 20:22

answered Aug 22 '17 at 20:17

Eleven

1
1

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered May 23 '18 at 09:47

0

Resetting my regional settings in my machine to the expected one solved my problem. For me the problem started when I switched my language settings to English(India). I had to switch it back to English(Great Britain).

answered May 23 '18 at 09:47

Amitabh Ghuwalewala

1
1

PIP Install Numpy throws an error "ascii codec can't decode byte 0xe2"

18 Answers18

Linked

Related