Error "Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper." (WSL Windows 10)

Intro

In my WSL (Wsman Shell commandLine, version 0.2.1) on Windows 10, I got pyenv installed and try to use pyenv-virtualenvwrapper. Yet, I can't seem to get it up and running, not even with the same .bashr and .profile config-files as I used for my Ubuntu - PC.

In what follows, I'm going to delineate what I've tried.

Check pyenv

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv
pyenv 1.2.26
Usage: pyenv <command> [<args>]

Some useful pyenv commands are:
   --version   Display the version of pyenv
   activate    Activate virtual environment
   commands    List all available pyenv commands
   deactivate   Deactivate virtual environment
   exec        Run an executable with the selected Python version
   global      Set or show the global Python version(s)
   help        Display help for a command
   hooks       List hook scripts for a given pyenv command
   init        Configure the shell environment for pyenv
   install     Install a Python version using python-build
   local       Set or show the local application-specific Python version(s)
   prefix      Display prefix for a Python version
   rehash      Rehash pyenv shims (run this after installing executables)
   root        Display the root directory where versions and shims are kept
   shell       Set or show the shell-specific Python version
   shims       List existing pyenv shims
   uninstall   Uninstall a specific Python version
   version     Show the current Python version(s) and its origin
   version-file   Detect the file that sets the current pyenv version
   version-name   Show the current Python version
   version-origin   Explain how the current Python version is set
   versions    List all Python versions available to pyenv
   virtualenv   Create a Python virtualenv using the pyenv-virtualenv plugin
   virtualenv-delete   Uninstall a specific Python virtualenv
   virtualenv-init   Configure the shell environment for pyenv-virtualenv
   virtualenv-prefix   Display real_prefix for a Python virtualenv version
   virtualenvs   List all Python virtualenvs found in `$PYENV_ROOT/versions/*'.
   virtualenvwrapper   Setup virtualenvwrapper into current shell.
   virtualenvwrapper_lazy   Setup virtualenvwrapper_lazy into current shell.
   whence      List all Python versions that contain the given executable
   which       Display the full path to an executable

See `pyenv help <command>' for information on a specific command.
For full documentation, see: https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv#readme

Try to run pyenv virtualenvwrapper as listed above in the options

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv virtualenvwrapper

Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper.

Perhaps pyenv-virtualenvwrapper has not been loaded into your shell properly.
Please restart current shell and try again.

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ virtualenvwrapper
virtualenvwrapper: command not found
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ which virtualenvwrapper
username@hd1pcms0347:~$

Install virtualenvwrapper via pip

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pip install virtualenvwrapper
Collecting virtualenvwrapper
  Using cached virtualenvwrapper-4.8.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting stevedore
  Using cached stevedore-3.3.0-py3-none-any.whl (49 kB)
Collecting virtualenv
  Using cached virtualenv-20.4.7-py2.py3-none-any.whl (7.2 MB)
Collecting virtualenv-clone
  Using cached virtualenv_clone-0.5.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl (6.6 kB)
Collecting pbr!=2.1.0,>=2.0.0
  Using cached pbr-5.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (111 kB)
Collecting six<2,>=1.9.0
  Using cached six-1.16.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (11 kB)
Collecting appdirs<2,>=1.4.3
  Using cached appdirs-1.4.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl (9.6 kB)
Collecting distlib<1,>=0.3.1
  Using cached distlib-0.3.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (338 kB)
Collecting filelock<4,>=3.0.0
  Using cached filelock-3.0.12-py3-none-any.whl (7.6 kB)
Installing collected packages: six, pbr, filelock, distlib, appdirs, virtualenv-clone, virtualenv, stevedore, virtualenvwrapper
Successfully installed appdirs-1.4.4 distlib-0.3.2 filelock-3.0.12 pbr-5.6.0 six-1.16.0 stevedore-3.3.0 virtualenv-20.4.7 virtualenv-clone-0.5.4 virtualenvwrapper-4.8.4

Check again if it works

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ virtualenvwrapper
virtualenvwrapper: command not found
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv virtualenvwrappr
pyenv: no such command `virtualenvwrappr'
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv virtualenvwrapper

Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper.

Perhaps pyenv-virtualenvwrapper has not been loaded into your shell properly.
Please restart current shell and try again.

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv-virtualenvwrapper

Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper.

Perhaps pyenv-virtualenvwrapper has not been loaded into your shell properly.
Please restart current shell and try again.

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv global
3.9.4
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv local
pyenv: no local version configured for this directory

Try to install pyenv-virtualenvwrapper again from github page following along the steps mentioned

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ $ git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper.git $(pyenv root)/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper
$: command not found
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper.git $(pyenv root)/plugins/pyenv
-virtualenvwrapper
fatal: destination path '/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper' already exists and is not an empty directory.
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ export PYENV_VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PREFER_PYVENV="true"
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv virtualenvwrapper

Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper.

Perhaps pyenv-virtualenvwrapper has not been loaded into your shell properly.
Please restart current shell and try again.

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ virtualenvwrapper
virtualenvwrapper: command not found

Check where the executables are located

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ ls -R /home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper
/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper:
LICENSE  README.md  bin  install.sh  shims  test

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/bin:
pyenv-sh-virtualenvwrapper  pyenv-sh-virtualenvwrapper_lazy  pyenv-virtualenvwrapper  pyenv-virtualenvwrapper_lazy

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/shims:
deactivate

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test:
command.bats    pyvenv.bats  stubs             tmp         version.bats       virtualenvwrapper.bats
installer.bats  setup.bats   test_helper.bash  unset.bats  virtualenvwrapper  virtualenvwrapper_lazy.bats

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/stubs:
stub

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/tmp:

/home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/virtualenvwrapper:
virtualenvwrapper.sh  virtualenvwrapper_lazy.sh

Trying to execute the scripts of interest "virtualenvwrapper.sh"

username@hd1pcms0347:~$ ./home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/virtualenvwrapper/virtualenvwrapper.sh
-bash: ./home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/virtualenvwrapper/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ bash /home/username/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenvwrapper/test/virtualenvwrapper/vi
rtualenvwrapper.sh
virtualenvwrapper.sh is loaded
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ virtualenvwrapper
virtualenvwrapper: command not found
username@hd1pcms0347:~$ pyenv virtualenvwrapper

Failed to initialize virtualenvwrapper.

Perhaps pyenv-virtualenvwrapper has not been loaded into your shell properly.
Please restart current shell and try again.

I don't know what else to try to make it work. Frankly, it is also astounding that on every other Ubuntu/Linux - distro different problems arise with this pyenv and virtualenvwrapper apps. Generally, when they work, they are marvelous, but setting them up is a pain in the a** more often than not.

I had the same error while trying to setup virtualenvwrapper on my mac (on the bash shell on BigSur 11.5.1). Finally I solved this issue: after installing pyenv and virtualenvwrapper your ~/.bashrc should look like this:

export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"

export PYENV_VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PREFER_PYVENV="true"
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs

eval "$(pyenv init -)"
pyenv virtualenvwrapper_lazy

Then source ~/.bashrc (also make sure that your .bash_profile or .profile is sourcing .bashrc).