Python pip unable to locate pyodbc

Question

Using virtualenv and just trying to install pyodbc. All resources I can find claim this should be extremely straightforward. After all the basic installs of MySQL, etc., just do:

pip install pyodbc 

However, I am seeing a very strange error. It has nothing (as far as I can tell) to do with missing libraries, and after Googling for this sort of error for a long time, I can't find anything constructive on it at all.

(local-dev)espears@espears-w ~ $ pip install pyodbc Downloading/unpacking pyodbc   Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pyodbc   Some externally hosted files were ignored (use --allow-external pyodbc to allow). Cleaning up... No distributions at all found for pyodbc Storing debug log for failure in /home/espears/.pip/pip.log 

So I tried with the "allow-external" option and it does not help:

(local-dev)espears@espears-w ~ $ pip install --allow-external pyodbc You must give at least one requirement to install (see "pip help install") 

But the help documentation makes it appear that I am using this option correctly, e.g. from the output of running pip help install:

Package Index Options:  ...    --allow-external <package>  Allow the installation of externally hosted files 

Here's the result in the PIP log file:

(local-dev)espears@espears-w ~ $ cat /home/espears/.pip/pip.log Downloading/unpacking pyodbc   Getting page https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/   URLs to search for versions for pyodbc:   * https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/   Analyzing links from page https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/     Skipping link http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/); not a file     Skipping link http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/); not a file   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Not searching http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/downloads/list (from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyodbc/) for files because external urls are disallowed.   Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pyodbc   Some externally hosted files were ignored (use --allow-external pyodbc to allow). Cleaning up...   Removing temporary dir /home/espears/.virtualenvs/local-dev/build... No distributions at all found for pyodbc Exception information: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "/home/espears/.virtualenvs/local-dev/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main     status = self.run(options, args)   File "/home/espears/.virtualenvs/local-dev/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 270, in run     requirement_set.prepare_files(finder, force_root_egg_info=self.bundle, bundle=self.bundle)   File "/home/espears/.virtualenvs/local-dev/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req.py", line 1157, in prepare_files     url = finder.find_requirement(req_to_install, upgrade=self.upgrade)   File "/home/espears/.virtualenvs/local-dev/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/index.py", line 285, in find_requirement     raise DistributionNotFound('No distributions at all found for %s' % req) DistributionNotFound: No distributions at all found for pyodbc 

It makes it seem that if I can just get the --allow-external option to work, it will work because it clearly sees the common location for getting pyodbc.

But I am puzzled why this is needed at all, when virtually all references to installing pyodbc do not need to go out of the way to enable external links. I've also been installing many packages all day today, with few issues and certainly not encountering this allow-external need in any other case.

I am using pip version 1.5 with Python 2.7.3 on Ubuntu 12.04.

Answer 1

Running pip install --allow-external pyodbc --allow-unverified pyodbc pyodbc will work if the PyPI directory structure is correct.

Based on the pip.log output when I originally posted this answer, I think that package's website directory structure was broken. You can always work around this type of problem by specifying the URL of the package like pip install https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/pyodbc/pyodbc-3.0.7.zip, links for different versions are described here.

Answer 2

I just tried installing pyodbc as well and hit the same wall. I think the problem you and I both hit is that --allow-external consumes the next argument as well. So you actually need to write:

sudo pip install --allow-external pyodbc pyodbc 

I then hit another error about unverified sources so that command that actually worked for me was:

sudo pip install --allow-external pyodbc --allow-unverified pyodbc pyodbc 

Note that once that was done the permissions on the installed files prevented normal users from access pyodbc. So I went in manually adjusted the permissions on all installed packages (seemed easier than finding just the files needed by pyodbc).

cd /usr/local/lib/python2.7/ chmod -R o=g dist-packages 

As per the suggestion of EMS I have added an issue to the Pip bug tracker. It can be found at:

https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/1893