Unable to import Tensorflow "No module named copyreg"

Question

El Capitan OS here. I've been trying to find a workaround with import Tensorflow into my ipython notebook, but so far no luck.

Like many people in the forums, I've also had issues with install tensorflow because of the six package. I was able to install after some fidgeting with brew

brew link gdbm
brew install python
rew linkapps python
sudo pip install https://storage.googleapis.com/tensorflow/mac/tensorflow-0.5.0-py2-none-any.whl

I got a message that tensorflow was installed correctly. Even when I did sudo pip install tensorflow I get the message:

Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): tensorflow in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): six>=1.10.0 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from tensorflow)
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): numpy>=1.9.2 in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (from tensorflow)

However, when I'm on my ipython notebook and I did an import tensorflow I get the message: ImportError: No module named tensorflow

I've dug further and found this error on the import as well:

In [1]: import tensorflow
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-1-a649b509054f> in <module>()
----> 1 import tensorflow

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tensorflow/__init__.py in <module>()
      2 # module.
      3 # pylint: disable=wildcard-import
----> 4 from tensorflow.python import *

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tensorflow/python/__init__.py in <module>()
     11 
     12 import tensorflow.python.platform
---> 13 from tensorflow.core.framework.graph_pb2 import *
     14 from tensorflow.core.framework.summary_pb2 import *
     15 from tensorflow.core.framework.config_pb2 import *

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tensorflow/core/framework/graph_pb2.py in <module>()
      6 from google.protobuf import descriptor as _descriptor
      7 from google.protobuf import message as _message
----> 8 from google.protobuf import reflection as _reflection
      9 from google.protobuf import symbol_database as _symbol_database
     10 from google.protobuf import descriptor_pb2

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/google/protobuf/reflection.py in <module>()
     56   from google.protobuf.pyext import cpp_message as message_impl
     57 else:
---> 58   from google.protobuf.internal import python_message as message_impl
     59 
     60 # The type of all Message classes.

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/google/protobuf/internal/python_message.py in <module>()
     57 
     58 import six
---> 59 import six.moves.copyreg as copyreg
     60 
     61 # We use "as" to avoid name collisions with variables.

ImportError: No module named copyreg

Answer 1

As Jonah commented, it's solved by this:

On MacOSX

If you encounter:

import six.moves.copyreg as copyreg

ImportError: No module named copyreg

Solution: TensorFlow depends on protobuf which requires six-1.10.0. Apple's default python environment has six-1.4.1 and may be difficult to upgrade. So we recommend either installing a separate copy of python via homebrew:

brew install python

But I highly recommend using virtualenv for this purpose.

# On Mac:
$ sudo easy_install pip  # If pip is not already installed
$ sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv

Next, set up a new virtualenv environment. To set it up in the directory ~/tensorflow, run:

$ virtualenv --system-site-packages ~/tensorflow
$ cd ~/tensorflow

Then activate the virtualenv:

$ source bin/activate  # If using bash
$ source bin/activate.csh  # If using csh
(tensorflow)$  # Your prompt should change

Inside the virtualenv, install TensorFlow:

(tensorflow)$ pip install --upgrade https://storage.googleapis.com/tensorflow/mac/tensorflow-0.5.0-py2-none-any.whl

You can then run your TensorFlow program like:

(tensorflow)$ python tensorflow/models/image/mnist/convolutional.py

# When you are done using TensorFlow:
(tensorflow)$ deactivate  # Deactivate the virtualenv

$  # Your prompt should change back