easy_install : ImportError: Entry point ('console_scripts', 'easy_install') not found

Question

I used easy_install to install pip, pip to install django, virtualenv, and virtualenvwrapper.

I have just returned to it a few weeks later and django does not seem to work anymore, but more concerning is I can't start the process over again as easy_install is returning the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/easy_install-2.7", line 10, in <module>
    load_entry_point('setuptools==0.6c12dev-r88846', 'console_scripts', 'easy_install')()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 318, in load_entry_point
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 2220, in load_entry_point
ImportError: Entry point ('console_scripts', 'easy_install') not found

After a good evening of hunting I am stumped as to how to resolve this.

Answer 1

You seem to have a version conflict; note the setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg path, but the /usr/bin/easy_install-2.7 script wants to load 0.6c12dev-r88846 instead.

The latter is a development version; it has the revision number of a subversion repository embedded in the version (dev-r88846).

I suspect you have two python installations; one is the system version (in /System/Library and the other is installed with the python installer into /Library/, and the stub script in /usr/bin/ may be installed with the system python.

If so, there'll be another copy of the stub at /Library/Python/2.7/bin/easy_install-2.7, which should work correctly.