Reinstalling pip2 in macOS?

Question

% pip2

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip2", line 11, in <module>
    load_entry_point('pip==21.0.1', 'console_scripts', 'pip2')()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 489, in load_entry_point
    return get_distribution(dist).load_entry_point(group, name)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2843, in load_entry_point
    return ep.load()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2434, in load
    return self.resolve()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2440, in resolve
    module = __import__(self.module_name, fromlist=['__name__'], level=0)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-21.0.1-py2.7.egg/pip/_internal/cli/main.py", line 60
    sys.stderr.write(f"ERROR: {exc}")

$Python2

% python2

WARNING: Python 2.7 is not recommended. 
This version is included in macOS for compatibility with legacy software. 
Future versions of macOS will not include Python 2.7. 
Instead, it is recommended that you transition to using 'python3' from within Terminal.

Python 2.7.16 (default, Dec 21 2020, 23:00:36) 
[GCC Apple LLVM 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.30.4) [+internal-os, ptrauth-isa=sign+stri on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

Python2 works fine but pip2 is broken and I can't install any of the packages. How can I reinstall pip in order to install the package?

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to use version 21 of pip, so it's worth noting that pip removed support for Python 2 in January 2021, so Pip version 20.3 is the last version which supports Python 2.7.

Here's the deprecation notice from get-pip.py:

DEPRECATION: Python 2.7 reached the end of its life on January 1st, 2020. Please upgrade your Python as Python 2.7 is no longer maintained. pip 21.0 will drop support for Python 2.7 in January 2021. More details about Python 2 support in pip can be found at https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/development/release-process/#python-2-support pip 21.0 will remove support for this functionality.

With that said, see pip no longer working after update error 'module' object is not callable or Can I force pip to reinstall the current version? for reinstalling pip.

If you uninstalled pip, you can still use the Python 2.7 version of get-pip.py to install it.

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/2.7/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python2 get-pip.py