pythonpipconda

PEP 668 Error (Externally managed environment) within Conda

While trying to pip install packages, even though I am inside a Conda environment, I'm getting the familiar error:

error: externally-managed-environment

I would expect this if I'm using Python directly from the system prompt. But why do I get this even inside the Conda environment?

Solution

  • Ok, after some effort I figured it out.

    It gives that error because the Conda environment is somehow using the system Python, from /usr/bin/python3 and /usr/bin/pip3. Check using commands like

    which python
which python3
which pip3

    You need it to use the instance of Python installed within the active Conda environment. One way to ensure this is to specify a version of Python while creating the Conda environment. I did this and it worked. Do something like:

    conda create -n env1 python=3.10

    If you already explicitly added Python while creating the Conda environment and you still get the same error, you probably have a different problem, google for "Conda using system Python".