Cannot create virtual environment with "setuptools pip wheel failed with error code 1"

Question

I'm using Windows 10 with Python 3.5 64bit. And installed virtualenv from pip.

When trying to create a new virtual environment, it tends to fail with the following logging:

  > virtualenv env1

  Using base prefix 'c:\\program files\\python 3.5'
  New python executable in env1\Scripts\python.exe
  Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...
    Complete output from command E:\vp\env1\Scripts\python.exe -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip wheel:
    Ignoring indexes: https://pypi.python.org/simple
  Collecting setuptools
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    The repository located at None is not a trusted or secure host and is being ignored. If this repository is available via HTTPS it is recommended to use HTTPS instead, otherwise you may silence this warning and allow it anyways with '--trusted-host None'.
    Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement setuptools (from versions: )
  No matching distribution found for setuptools
  ----------------------------------------
  ...Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\runpy.py", line 170, in _run_module_as_main
      "__main__", mod_spec)
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
      exec(code, run_globals)
    File "C:\Program Files\Python 3.5\Scripts\virtualenv.exe\__main__.py", line 9, in <module>
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 832, in main
      symlink=options.symlink)
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 1004, in create_environment
      install_wheel(to_install, py_executable, search_dirs)
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 969, in install_wheel
      'PIP_NO_INDEX': '1'
    File "c:\program files\python 3.5\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 910, in call_subprocess
      % (cmd_desc, proc.returncode))
  OSError: Command E:\vp\env1\Scripts\python.exe -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip wheel failed with error code 1

When execute with --no-setuptools, it works well and creates a virtual environment.

Answer 1

I had the same error. I have Python installed at 'F:\??\pathon3.6'. Due to the Chinese text, I got this error. I notice that your path is 'c:\program files\python 3.5', with a space in 'program files'. I think that's why the error happened.

Answer 2

I had a similar but different error come up, and I had a module in my current directory that was overriding Python's string module.

Here's my stack trace. Notice that it's basically saying the string module doesn't have a maketrans attribute. The docs said that was not so. This was a big hint that something was wrong with the string module, which made me check the directory for superfluous modules.

New python executable in ./env/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...
  Complete output from command /home/.../env/bin/python -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip wheel:
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv_support/pip-7.1.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl/pip/__init__.py", line 6, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/optparse.py", line 77, in <module>
    import textwrap
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/textwrap.py", line 40, in <module>
    class TextWrapper:
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/textwrap.py", line 82, in TextWrapper
    whitespace_trans = string.maketrans(_whitespace, ' ' * len(_whitespace))
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'maketrans'
----------------------------------------
...Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/virtualenv", line 11, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 832, in main
    symlink=options.symlink)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 1004, in create_environment
    install_wheel(to_install, py_executable, search_dirs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 969, in install_wheel
    'PIP_NO_INDEX': '1'
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 910, in call_subprocess
    % (cmd_desc, proc.returncode))
OSError: Command /home/.../env/bin/python -c "import sys, pip; sys...d\"] + sys.argv[1:]))" setuptools pip wheel failed with error code 1