/usr/bin/python3: Error while finding spec for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (<class 'ImportError'>: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')

Question

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the actual error:

root@alexus:~# echo "source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
root@alexus:~# source ~/.bashrc
/usr/bin/python3: Error while finding spec for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (<class 'ImportError'>: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
virtualenvwrapper.sh: There was a problem running the initialization hooks.

If Python could not import the module virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader,
check that virtualenvwrapper has been installed for
VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3 and that PATH is
set properly.
root@alexus:~#

I'm following how to to the teeth, what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I found that problem can be reproduced with or without pyenv. Here checklist how to solve this problem which helps me on Mac with fresh install brew and pyenv:

0. pyenv install 3.11.1 (or whatever version you need) and global it with command pyenv global 3.11.1
1. type python and make sure, that it's the same version that you set-up in previous step.
2. install virtualenvwrapper with python -m pip install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper
3. FIRST IMPORTANT! SET THE FIRST VARIABLE CORRECT! which python tells you python path to your installed path. Use this path to selected by system python executable to tell virtualenvwrapper which python it need to use with variable VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON.
4. SECOND IMPORTANT! Make sure you execute correct virtualenvwrapper.sh. I use pyenv so I just use virtualenvwrapper in my global version (look for config below)

command -v pyenv >/dev/null || export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init -)"

export PYENV_VERSION="$(pyenv version-name)"
VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON="$HOME/.pyenv/shims/python"


export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
export PROJECT_HOME=$HOME/Devel

source ~/.pyenv/versions/$PYENV_VERSION/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

# Tell pyenv-virtualenvwrapper to use pyenv when creating new Python environments
export PYENV_VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PREFER_PYVENV="true"

# Set the pyenv shims to initialize
if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then
 eval "$(pyenv init -)"
fi

Answer 2

If anyone's still having this issue, I followed the top answer on this thread to fix a pip3 mismatch with my version of python, then ran sudo pip3 install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper followed by source ~/.bashrc which resolved the issue for me.

Answer 3

I had this warning after a brew upgrade, which updated python3 packages and brew-installed python3.

I found a pip3 and python3 version mismatch as Evan Thomas hinted:

❯ which python3 && python3 --version
/usr/bin/python3
Python 3.8.2

❯ which pip3 && pip3 --version
/usr/local/bin/pip3
pip 21.0.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pip (python 3.9)

Running brew link python@3.9 as snakesNbronies suggested removes the warning.

Answer 4

If you're here after a macOS update, and installed python3 via brew, try re-linking your version of python3

• brew link python@3.8
• brew link python@3.9
• etc

Answer 5

try to install python-is-python3:

1.Update the package index:

sudo apt-get update

2.Install python-is-python3 deb package:

sudo apt-get install python-is-python3

Answer 6

Here is what for me solved

Error while finding module specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')

obtained in creating and activating environments.

In my .bashrc I had wrote:

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=python3

Changing it to:

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=$(which python3)

solved the problem for me.

NOTE: If you activate an environment and run which python3, you will find out that the python run is the one of the environment, not the global one specified in VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON

Answer 7

I had a similar issue on Mac OS Catalina 10.15.6 after I installed vim and macvim using following:

brew install vim && brew install macvim

which I believe was the cause for the problem.

While workon worked but always gave an error message as below:

 ~ $ workon loom
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3: Error while finding module specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3: Error while finding module specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
(loom)  ~ $ 

What worked for me finally was:

1. adding export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python3 to .bash_profile
2. sudo pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

Answer 8

Thanks to @Alexander, I was able to fix my issue by changing the line in ~/.bashrc:

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3

to

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python

due to backwards compatibility.

Answer 9

I've got this error for entirely different reasons, but since I ended up on this thread, I gather somebody might find this useful. So in my case, it turned out that my script was attempting to activate the virtual environment while I was already on it (the workon statement is issued from my .profile file). And so the solution was to simply deactivate the environment first and then run the script.

Answer 10

On my computer, I ran sudo apt install python-pip and then pip install virtualenvwrapper but on my settings, I set it as follows:

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.Envs
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=$(which -a python3)
source $HOME/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

That got rid of the error and note that I am using python3 and I use pip3 as my default

Answer 11

In my case, there was somehow a mismatch between pip3 and python3 (because I have multiple pythons installed). This worked for me:

sudo python -m pip install virtualenvwrapper

Answer 12

I faced similar problem, when using python3 with virtualenvwrapper,

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

Then install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper from pip3,

sudo pip3 install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper

then source it again,

source $HOME/.bashrc 

Answer 13

I had already installed virtualenv so just needed to run

pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

Answer 14

This error appeared for me after running brew update and brew upgrade on mac os high sierra.

The issue was resolved by reinstalling virtualenvwrappper i.e. pip install virtualenvwrapper.

Answer 15

In macOS Sierra, If you installed virtualenv package using pip3, add following to .bash_profile

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python3

or

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=$(which python3)

after that every new virtualenvironment you created using workon myvenv uses python3 as python interpreter

Answer 16

check your python3 installation directory:

which python3

If installed by brew you should get:

/usr/local/python3

export python version to be used virtualenvwrapper:

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/local/python3

source your shell configuration file:
bash

source .bashrc

zsh

source .zshrc

Answer 17

I encountered a similar issue with virtualenvwrapper complaining not being to find virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader. I was able to narrow down to this particular line in my .bash_profile

source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

as seen below

$ source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
/usr/local/opt/python3/bin/python3.6: Error while finding module specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
virtualenvwrapper.sh: There was a problem running the initialization hooks. 

If Python could not import the module virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader,
check that virtualenvwrapper has been installed for
VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python3 and that PATH is
set properly.

After some trial and error, it turns out that a reinstallation of the virtualenvwrapper package resolved it. This was a manifest of the fact that I recently upgrade python3 (from version 3.5.2 to 3.6.1) via homebrew and in turn it broke virtualenvwrapper's shell script that hardcoded references to the older version of python3 (in my case it was 3.5.2). In short, this below line should fix it (at least in my case it did).

pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

Answer 18

export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python

good choice, but you already knew /usr/bin/python is 2.7

If you want to use version 3

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

and logout & login