pip upgrade issue using python -m pip install --upgrade pip

Question

Recently, I've been trying to upgrade my pip using the following command:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

the process goes as follows:

Downloading pip-21.0.1-py3-none-any.whl (1.5 MB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 1.5 MB 1.7 MB/s
Installing collected packages: pip
  Attempting uninstall: pip
    Found existing installation: pip 20.3.3
    Uninstalling pip-20.3.3:
      Successfully uninstalled pip-20.3.3
  Rolling back uninstall of pip

Then a bunch of Moving to lines start to appear, then comes the error:

ValueError: Unable to find resource t64.exe in package pip._vendor.distlib

What am I suppossed to do???

Answer 1

This is likely an issue with the pip installation. You can fix it using the following steps:

1. Uninstall the current pip:

    python -m pip uninstall pip setuptools

2. Download get-pip.py from https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

3. Run the get-pip script:

    python get-pip.py

Alternatively you can use, but it isn't recommended:

easy install --upgrade pip

Answer 2

FYI, I uninstalled pip as above and then ran a version check to verify:

python -m pip --version

and got

pip 21.0.1 from C:\Program Files\Python39\lib\site-packages\pip (python 3.9)

Finding that odd, I reran the upgraded again:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

and got

Defaulting to user installation because normal site-packages is not writeable
Requirement already satisfied: pip in c:\program files\python39\lib\site-packages (21.0.1)

I realize that this was being performed from user account. So, I re-did the upgrade as an Administrator. This time there was no "Defaulting..." line.

It seems that if you're not careful when installing/upgrading pip you can inadvertently change it's availability from global to user-specific, borking the removal process for future upgrades.

TL;DR As Administrator, after upgrading to pip 21.0.1, uninstall pip (python -m pip uninstall) to fix the "ValueError".

Answer 3

Uninstall setup tools using this command:

python -m pip uninstall pip setuptools

Install setup tools again using this command:

pip install --upgrade setuptools