ImportError: No module named extern

Question

I'm getting this error when trying to install any package with pip. I have two pip instances, one with Python 2.7 and other with Python 3.

    Could not import setuptools which is required to install from a source distribution.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 375, in setup_py
    import setuptools  # noqa
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
    from setuptools.extern.six.moves import filterfalse, map
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/setuptools/extern/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from pkg_resources.extern import VendorImporter
ImportError: No module named extern

Even when I try to install the 'extern' module I get this error. Also when installing with Python itself, like python setup.py install.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

sudo apt-get purge python-pkg-resources
sudo apt-get -f install

here actually packages are removed and purged (any configuration files are deleted too).

-f : Attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.

sudo pip install packagename

#sourcehere

Answer 2

Do this it will work

sudo pip install -U setuptools 

Answer 3

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to contribute since I ran into this issue and this thread kept coming up in the results.

Note: This was on MacOS 10.12. My shell is zsh and I already have brew installed

First I ran each of these commands

brew install python
brew install python3

This will either install it or you'll receive an "already installed" message as I did.

Next, run the following command

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

And last:

sudo python get-pip.py

Final note: for my install to work, I ended up having to run the command with pip3

sudo pip3 install nameofinstallhere

Answer 4

Not sure whether it is installation issue or packege but it seems like you will not be able to import any package of them, if you have installed python perfectly then

try this commands

step 1 :

$which pip
/usr/local/bin/pip

step 2 :

/usr/local/bin/pip install django

or any of your package name. I am considering ubuntu(OS)

Answer 5

You can try the following command; it has worked for me:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python-setuptools