Why did conda and pip just stop working? 'CompiledFFI' object has no attribute 'def_extern'

Question

I just installed/upgraded the following packages on my system (Mac OSX 10.7.5, using python 2.7.11).

    package                |            build
---------------------------|-----------------
enum34-1.1.2               |           py27_0          55 KB
idna-2.0                   |           py27_0         123 KB
ipaddress-1.0.14           |           py27_0          27 KB
pyasn1-0.1.9               |           py27_0          54 KB
pycparser-2.14             |           py27_0         147 KB
cffi-1.2.1                 |           py27_0         167 KB
cryptography-1.0.2         |           py27_0         370 KB
pyopenssl-0.14             |           py27_0         122 KB
ndg-httpsclient-0.3.3      |           py27_0          30 KB
------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Total:         1.1 MB

Afterwards, I get the following error when trying to call pip or anaconda:

'CompiledFFI' object has no attribute 'def_extern'

What's going on and how do I fix this?

Here's the full error message:

    $ conda
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/bin/conda", line 5, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/main.py", line 118, in main
    from conda.cli import main_search
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/main_search.py", line 12, in <module>
    from conda.misc import make_icon_url
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/misc.py", line 19, in <module>
    from conda.api import get_index
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/api.py", line 10, in <module>
    from conda.fetch import fetch_index
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/fetch.py", line 24, in <module>
    from conda.connection import CondaSession, unparse_url, RETRIES
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/connection.py", line 24, in <module>
    import requests
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/requests/__init__.py", line 53, in <module>
    from .packages.urllib3.contrib import pyopenssl
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/requests/packages/urllib3/contrib/pyopenssl.py", line 54, in <module>
    import OpenSSL.SSL
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/OpenSSL/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
    from OpenSSL import rand, crypto, SSL
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/OpenSSL/rand.py", line 11, in <module>
    from OpenSSL._util import (
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/OpenSSL/_util.py", line 6, in <module>
    from cryptography.hazmat.bindings.openssl.binding import Binding
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cryptography/hazmat/bindings/openssl/binding.py", line 68, in <module>
    error=-1)
  File "/Users/User/miniconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cryptography/hazmat/bindings/openssl/binding.py", line 57, in wrapper
    ffi.def_extern(name=name, **kwargs)(func)
AttributeError: 'CompiledFFI' object has no attribute 'def_extern'

Answer 1

I had this error too, but I've resolved it by upgrading cffi like so:

pip install --upgrade cffi

Answer 2

Upgrading cffi did not solve it for me; I did:

sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove python-cryptography

and then reinstalled cryptography.

Answer 3

I solve the problem with this solution

easy_install -U cffi

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-pip/+bug/1512792/comments/11

Answer 4

I am answering the question this late, as all of the above answers didn't work me.

Cause: The probable cause was cffi package version i.e. 1.2.1 (in my case 1.3.0).

Solution: Upgrade cffi package. But it isn't that simple as most probably it'd have broken your pip as well.

First uninstall pip (for CentOS 7):

yum remove -y python-pip

Once removed, now delete the cffi package manually:

To get the exact path:

$ python 

>>> import cffi
>>> cffi.__path__
['/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/cffi']

Now go to the directory: cd /usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages - to check what cffi files and folders are there:

ls | grep cffi
cffi
cffi-1.3.0-py2.7.egg-info
_cffi_backend.so

Remove the cffi relevant files and folders:

rm -rf cffi cffi-1.3.0-py2.7.egg-info/ _cffi_backend.so

Re-installing pip:

yum install -y python-pip

Installing the latest cffi package:

pip install cffi==1.8.2