Can't import `multivariate_normal` when using `scipy.stats`

Question

I'm trying to generate the value of the pdf of a multivariate distribution with scipy. This is the import statement in my script:

from scipy.stats import multivariate_normal

but it's throwing an ImportError:

ImportError: cannot import name multivariate_normal

Everything else is working normally.

Answer 1

Quick Fix [not recommended]

I upgraded numpy first, and then scipy. After that, I was able to import multivariate_normal from scipy.stats

pip install numpy --upgrade --user

pip install scipy --upgrade --user

Answer 2

If you're using version 0.13.3 you can upgrade at the command line with pip install scipy --upgrade

Answer 3

I had this issue on my Ubuntu 14.04 and python 2.7. I resolved it by following the steps given here . The problem arises because the scipy must be atleast 0.14 for stats package to work. Just doing sudo pip install scipy --upgrade did not work for me. I had to upgrade the numpy and then try to upgrade the scipy, because scipy is dependent on numpy. We also need to update the build dependencies.Below are the steps I followed to fix it

Step 1) First need to make sure all scipy dependencies are installed properly

sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy python-matplotlib ipython ipython-notebook python-pandas python-sympy python-nose

Step 2) Make sure the numpy, which scipy is dependent on is up-to-date

sudo pip install numpy --upgrade

Step 3) Make sure all the build dependencies of scipy is available

sudo apt-get build-dep python-scipy

Step 4) Rerun the upgrade

sudo pip install scipy --upgrade