UnicodeDecodeError When trying to install something with pip2

C:\Users\Andrey>pip2 install scrapy
Collecting scrapy
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\basecommand.py", line 223, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\commands\install.py", line 280, in run

    requirement_set.prepare_files(finder)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_set.py", line 317, in prepare_
files
    functools.partial(self._prepare_file, finder))
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_set.py", line 304, in _walk_re
q_to_install
    more_reqs = handler(req_to_install)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_set.py", line 439, in _prepare
_file
    req_to_install.populate_link(finder, self.upgrade)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req\req_install.py", line 244, in popu
late_link
    self.link = finder.find_requirement(self, upgrade)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\index.py", line 486, in find_requireme
nt
    all_versions = self._find_all_versions(req.name)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\index.py", line 404, in _find_all_vers
ions
    index_locations = self._get_index_urls_locations(project_name)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\index.py", line 378, in _get_index_url
s_locations
    page = self._get_page(main_index_url)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\index.py", line 810, in _get_page
    return HTMLPage.get_page(link, session=self.session)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\index.py", line 920, in get_page
    "Cache-Control": "max-age=600",
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\sessions.py", line 47
7, in get
    return self.request('GET', url, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\download.py", line 373, in request
    return super(PipSession, self).request(method, url, *args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\sessions.py", line 46
5, in request
    resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\sessions.py", line 60
5, in send
    r.content
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\models.py", line 750,
 in content
    self._content = bytes().join(self.iter_content(CONTENT_CHUNK_SIZE)) or bytes
()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\models.py", line 673,
 in generate
    for chunk in self.raw.stream(chunk_size, decode_content=True):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\packages\urllib3\resp
onse.py", line 307, in stream
    data = self.read(amt=amt, decode_content=decode_content)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\requests\packages\urllib3\resp
onse.py", line 243, in read
    data = self._fp.read(amt)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\cachecontrol\filewrapper.py",
line 54, in read
    self.__callback(self.__buf.getvalue())
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\cachecontrol\controller.py", l
ine 244, in cache_response
    self.serializer.dumps(request, response, body=body),
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\download.py", line 276, in set
    return super(SafeFileCache, self).set(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\cachecontrol\caches\file_cache
.py", line 99, in set
    with self.lock_class(name) as lock:
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\lockfile\mkdirlockfile.py", li
ne 18, in __init__
    LockBase.__init__(self, path, threaded, timeout)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\lockfile\__init__.py", line 18
9, in __init__
    hash(self.path)))
  File "C:\Python27\lib\ntpath.py", line 85, in join
    result_path = result_path + p_path
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xcf in position 0: ordinal
not in range(128)

Crash happening on this join at site-packages\pip_vendor\lockfile__init__.py:

self.unique_name = os.path.join(dirname,
                                        "%s%s.%s%s" % (self.hostname,
                                                       self.tname,
                                                       self.pid,
                                                       hash(self.path)))

hostname, tname, pid, path before crash:

('\xcf\xca', '-2b24', 11924, u'c:\\users\\andrey\\appdata\\local\\pip\\cache\\h
tp\\b\\9\\e\\6\\f\\b9e6fc103d2676598ac31ba30018a5110b859143b5cb8105c3666ca2')

[Choumingzhao]

I got the same error in Python2.7.13 on Windows 10 with my username setting to Chinese, and the problem is solved with following coding adding to site-packages\pip_vendor\lockfile\__init__.py right after all other import lines.( code are copied from stackoverflow and some small edit)

import sys
# While sys.setdefaultencoding() return "utf-8" in python3 in my PC
# it return "ascii" in python2, so I changed it to OEM(GBK for me)
reload(sys)  # Reload does the trick!
sys.setdefaultencoding('GBK')  #  you could try it with your OEM encoding.

But some packages depends on Microsoft Visual C++ compilers still failed with encoding problem, so I do the same to the file site-packages\setuptools\msvc.py and it worked !

If problems are not solved with the trick above, maybe you can try this.

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