virtualenv doesn't create PYTHONPATH / pip installed packages don't work

Question

I'm using virtualenv 1.9.1 on cygwin under win 7. Each virtualenv is created without any options (other than the directory name, obviously). There are no fancy customisations.

All virtualenvs are fresh, in the sense that I have not created any wrapper scripts, nor edited any of the virtualenv scripts. I am completely certain that I am not doing anything special (i.e. other than misusing virtualenv, rather than taking action which frustrates its operation) which is causing PYTHONPATH to be absent in multiple virtualenvs.

The virtualenv activate script for each new virtualenv does not create a PYTHONPATH. pip installs packages under $VIRTUAL_ENV/lib/python2.7/site-packages/<packagedir> (e.g. lib/python2.7/site-packages/html5lib).

pip's behaviour seems desirable. However, running python (after activating the virtualenv) results in no pip-installed packages being loadable (i.e. "no module named ...").

Update: Adding a PYTHONPATH to activate does indeed "solve" the problem. Obviously, I don't want to manually maintain this, nor have to update activate_this.py. I would still like to know why virtualenvs now do not work straight out of the box.

What's the solution? virtualenv never used to do this. What's wrong with it now?

Update 2: Here is the output of running virtualenv with -vv:

$ virtualenv -vv newvirtualenv
Creating newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7
Symlinking Python bootstrap modules
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/config
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/os.py
  Ignoring built-in bootstrap module: posix
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/posixpath.py
  Cannot import bootstrap module: nt
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/ntpath.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/genericpath.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/fnmatch.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/locale.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/encodings
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/codecs.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/stat.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/UserDict.py
  File newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/readline.dll already exists
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/copy_reg.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/types.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/re.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/sre.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/sre_parse.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/sre_constants.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/sre_compile.py
  File newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/zlib.dll already exists
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/warnings.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/linecache.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/_abcoll.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/abc.py
  Symlinking newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/_weakrefset.py
Creating newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Writing newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site.py
Writing newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/orig-prefix.txt
Writing newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/no-global-site-packages.txt
Creating parent directories for newvirtualenv/include
Symlinking newvirtualenv/include/python2.7
Creating newvirtualenv/bin
New python executable in newvirtualenv/bin/python2.7
Changed mode of newvirtualenv/bin/python2.7 to 0755
Also creating executable in newvirtualenv/bin/python
Changed mode of newvirtualenv/bin/python to 0755
Testing executable with newvirtualenv/bin/python2.7 -c "import sys;out=sys.stdout;getattr(out, "buffer", out).write(sys.prefix.encode("utf-8"))"
Got sys.prefix result: u'/cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv'
Creating newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/distutils
Writing newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/distutils/__init__.py
Writing newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/distutils/distutils.cfg
Using existing setuptools egg: /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv_support/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
Installing setuptools...
  Running command /cygdrive/c/Users/ma...ualenv/bin/python2.7 -c "#!python
\"\"\"Bootstra...sys.argv[1:])






" -v /usr/lib/python2.7/s...ols-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
  Processing setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
  Copying setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg to /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
  Adding setuptools 0.6c11 to easy-install.pth file
  Saving /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/easy-install.pth
  Installing easy_install script to /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin
  changing mode of /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin/easy_install to 755
  Installing easy_install-2.7 script to /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin
  changing mode of /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin/easy_install-2.7 to 755

  Installed /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
  Processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c11
  Finished processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c11
...Installing setuptools...done.
Installing existing pip-1.3.1.tar.gz distribution: /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv_support/pip-1.3.1.tar.gz
Installing pip...
  Running command /cygdrive/c/Users/ma...ualenv/bin/python2.7 -x /cygdrive/c/Users/ma...env/bin/easy_install /usr/lib/python2.7/s...ort/pip-1.3.1.tar.gz
  Processing pip-1.3.1.tar.gz
  Running pip-1.3.1/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-ZP_VIv/pip-1.3.1/egg-dist-tmp-H3XBh_
  warning: no files found matching '*.html' under directory 'docs'
  warning: no previously-included files matching '*.txt' found under directory 'docs/_build'
  no previously-included directories found matching 'docs/_build/_sources'
  Adding pip 1.3.1 to easy-install.pth file
  Installing pip script to /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin
  Installing pip-2.7 script to /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/bin

  Installed /cygdrive/c/Users/marcin/Documents/codeprojects/newvirtualenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.3.1-py2.7.egg
  Processing dependencies for pip==1.3.1
  Finished processing dependencies for pip==1.3.1
...Installing pip...done.
Writing newvirtualenv/bin/activate
Writing newvirtualenv/bin/activate.fish
Writing newvirtualenv/bin/activate_this.py
Writing newvirtualenv/bin/activate.csh

Answer 1

I'm on Win7, running cygwin's Python. I've installed easy_install with this. Then pip, then virtualenv. Then ran virtualenv newve, then source newve/bin/activate, then pip installed a package (IPython). Everything works fine. I can import from python REPL, and the program works, and the paths are set correctly. And PYTHONPATH is never set anywhere. I'm at a loss.

Try reinstalling everything?

Edit:

Found out easy_install is available in the cygwin package python-setuptools.