pip3 error - '_NamespacePath' object has no attribute 'sort'

Question

I tried to install a package through pip3, and I got this error. Every pip/pip3 command that I run gives me this error-

alexg@hitbox:~$ pip3 -V
Traceback (m         


        

Answer 1

I had this same problem, and was unable to run any command with pip3 (including any commands like pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools).

Only fix I've found was to completely uninstall and re-install python 3 (sudo apt-get remove python3, sudo apt-get install python3, sudo apt install python3-pip) and now pip3 is working properly again.