How can I fix this error installing web3 on Python

Question

ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
     command: 'C:\Program Files\Python39\python.exe' -u -c 'import io, os, sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'C:\\Users\\KimXD\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-7pjpmdge\\bitarray_3a1e8028774c4a059cdba67b160795fd\\setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'C:\\Users\\KimXD\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-7pjpmdge\\bitarray_3a1e8028774c4a059cdba67b160795fd\\setup.py'"'"';f = getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__) if os.path.exists(__file__) else io.StringIO('"'"'from setuptools import setup; setup()'"'"');code = f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record 'C:\Users\KimXD\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-record-f8bq9svc\install-record.txt' --single-version-externally-managed --user --prefix= --compile --install-headers 'C:\Users\KimXD\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python39\Include\bitarray'
         cwd: C:\Users\KimXD\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-7pjpmdge\bitarray_3a1e8028774c4a059cdba67b160795fd\
    Complete output (17 lines):
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build
    creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.9
    creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.9\bitarray
    copying bitarray\test_bitarray.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.9\bitarray
    copying bitarray\test_util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.9\bitarray
    copying bitarray\util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.9\bitarray
    copying bitarray\__init__.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.9\bitarray
    running build_ext
    building 'bitarray._bitarray' extension
    creating build\temp.win-amd64-3.9
    creating build\temp.win-amd64-3.9\Release
    creating build\temp.win-amd64-3.9\Release\bitarray
    cl.exe /c /nologo /Ox /W3 /GL /DNDEBUG /MD -IC:\Program Files\Python39\include -IC:\Program Files\Python39\include /Tcbitarray/_bitarray.c /Fobuild\temp.win-amd64-3.9\Release\bitarray/_bitarray.obj
    error: command 'cl.exe' failed: None
    ----------------------------------------
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1: 'C:\Program Files\Python39\python.exe' -u -c 'import io, os, sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'C:\\Users\\KimXD\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-7pjpmdge\\bitarray_3a1e8028774c4a059cdba67b160795fd\\setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'C:\\Users\\KimXD\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-install-7pjpmdge\\bitarray_3a1e8028774c4a059cdba67b160795fd\\setup.py'"'"';f = getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__) if os.path.exists(__file__) else io.StringIO('"'"'from setuptools import setup; setup()'"'"');code = f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record 'C:\Users\KimXD\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-record-f8bq9svc\install-record.txt' --single-version-externally-managed --user --prefix= --compile --install-headers 'C:\Users\KimXD\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python39\Include\bitarray' Check the logs for full command output.

Answer 1

I assume you were trying to install web3 using the pip command python -m pip install web3 (or pip install web3 for short, although the first form is better). I got roughly the same error when performing this command.

The problem isn't in web3, however, but in one of its dependencies. You can check this by installing it with --no-deps , which works fine:

C:\temp\stack_overflow>pip install --no-deps web3
Collecting web3
  Using cached web3-5.24.0-py3-none-any.whl (487 kB)
Installing collected packages: web3
Successfully installed web3-5.24.0

But this probably doesn't solve your problem, because the module likely doesn't work without all its dependencies. The dependency that is failing in this case is bitarray . This is because bitarray is a source package. The documentation of this library contains installation instructions:

If you have a working C compiler, you can simply:

$ pip install bitarray

If you rather want to use precompiled binaries, you can:

• conda install bitarray (both the default Anaconda repository as well as conda-forge support bitarray)
• download Windows wheels from Chris Gohlke

I did the last step: downloading the wheel from the mentioned website, and installing it with pip install bitarray-2.3.4-cp38-cp38-win_amd64.whl (your version may be different of course). This worked like a charm.

However, web3 also has a dependency on lru-dict , which resulted in the same issue. Unfortunately, I could not find pre-compiled binaries for this package, so if you encounter the same problem, you now have two options:

1. Use conda-forge to install your packages. I personally don't have experience with conda, but conda-forge seems to support the lru-dict package (as well as the above-mentioned bitarray package).

2. Make sure to install Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater. As mentioned in the error message: Get it with "Microsoft C++ Build Tools": https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/

   This page contains some more detailed instructions on how to download and install it.

I got it working by updating the Visual C++ compiler to the latest version and make sure to include the Windows 10 SDK, as explained in this SO answer .

(venv) C:\temp\stack_overflow>python.exe -m pip install web3
Collecting web3
  Using cached web3-5.24.0-py3-none-any.whl (487 kB)
(...lots of lines listing requirements already satisfied...)
Building wheels for collected packages: lru-dict, bitarray
  Building wheel for lru-dict (setup.py) ... done
  Created wheel for lru-dict: filename=lru_dict-1.1.7-cp39-cp39-win_amd64.whl size=12711 sha256=a6ccbda691f0a941591c1b9c1ae24a5a4ee26d726685f2e71aa382e5b77a3d65
  Stored in directory: c:\users\wovano\appdata\local\pip\cache\wheels\86\3f\f6\6efebdbc72403e91c39f8cc817f61627d065eed97921b8e5b8
  Building wheel for bitarray (setup.py) ... done
  Created wheel for bitarray: filename=bitarray-1.2.2-cp39-cp39-win_amd64.whl size=55817 sha256=a03c3e6ac482b1cbe4adce197f0bd4333c7094af2d785f5575bdff16a024710d
  Stored in directory: c:\users\wovano\appdata\local\pip\cache\wheels\f6\b3\8d\0bb7212600c4671dcb713dec6574c37b118c2c321e6ed52fe3
Successfully built lru-dict bitarray
Installing collected packages: bitarray, attrs, async-timeout, websockets, pywin32, protobuf, lru-dict, jsonschema, ipfshttpclient, eth-account, aiohttp, web3
Successfully installed aiohttp-3.7.4.post0 async-timeout-3.0.1 attrs-21.2.0 bitarray-1.2.2 eth-account-0.5.6 ipfshttpclient-0.8.0a2 jsonschema-3.2.0 lru-dict-1.1.7 protobuf-3.18.1 pywin32-302 web3-5.24.0 websockets-9.1

NB: It is recommended to install web3 in a clean virtual environment, to avoid version conflicts with other installed modules.

Answer 2

Let me tell you one perfect solution for such problems. It is always better to have a virtual environment which solves the version problems of the different problems ... you may follow the below process and it will help

# Install pip if it is not available:
$ which pip || curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python

# Install virtualenv if it is not available:
$ which virtualenv || pip install --upgrade virtualenv

# *If* the above command displays an error, you can try installing as root:
$ sudo pip install virtualenv

# Create a virtual environment:
$ virtualenv -p python3 ~/.venv-py3

# Activate your new virtual environment:
$ source ~/.venv-py3/bin/activate

# With virtualenv active, make sure you have the latest packaging tools
$ pip install --upgrade pip setuptools

# Now we can install web3.py...
$ pip install --upgrade web3