python pip broken by virtualenv

Question

I recently had to switch my machine at work. On the new machine, pip is not anymore.

$ pip --version
...
OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv-15.0.1.dist-info'

I imagine that this issue is caused by virtualenv, as I never encountered any problems on my old machine and the only difference I find, is that there was no virtualenv package installed on the old machine.

However

$ python -c "import pip; print pip.__version__"
10.0.1 

still works.

I would be grateful if anyone could provide help, how to fix this problem or trace down the real problem.

Please note: I do not have root rights.

• kchawla-pi: Merely installing the virtualenv package wouldn't break pip. Do you mean pip works when you have no virtual environments active but breaks in the virtual environment you are using?
• Danilo: Is virtualenv installed, and can you run virtualenv?
• phd: Ask a sysadmin to check permissions for all directories in the path /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv-15.0.1.dist-info.
• DerWeh: Sorry for the late response, something came in between. I will be able to check things on Monday. @DaniloRiecken it is installed, I looked up the documentation how to disable active environments, none was running. What exactly should I check? I never worked with 'virtualenv' so I got no idea how it works. We currently have no active sysadmin, but I will try figure things out, I will give you the info on content of the directory on Monday. Thanks a lot for the help.

Answer 1

Here the problem is you don't have permission to the system folder. So whenever you use pip try to use it like this.

python -m pip install --user package

Here the package means the package you need to install using pip. Furthermore try using the following command to upgrade the version of your pip.

python -m pip install --user --upgrade pip