`pipenv install XYZ` command sometimes hangs indefinitely at "Locking [packages] dependencies"

Similar to these issues:

• https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/356
• https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/278

Summary

When using pipenv install XYZ, the process hangs indefinitely at “Locking [packages] dependencies”.

This doesn’t happen every time, and may be related to which package is being installed. This morning it is happening every time I try to install tensorflow. Last night it was happening for numpy as well, but today numpy is fine.

The hanged response seems to last indefinitely (though I did manually terminate the process after an hour). The Pipfile.lock is not written, but the Pipfile is written and the expected packages are installed and listed when I run pipenv run pip freeze.

I was able to reproduce this using various permutations of:

• (L)ubuntu 16.04 and (X)ubuntu 17.10
• pipenv --three and pipenv --two
• pipenv installed through python 2.7 and pipenv installed through python 3.5
• …and I downloaded the pipenv source and installed that in an isolated environment to see if the issue was specific to pipenv version 11.8.3. I experienced the same behavior in 11.9.0.

I am also able to reproduce it by simply running pipenv lock or pipenv update if I have tensorflow (or whatever package is currently causing me trouble) listed in my Pipfile.

$ python -m pipenv.help output

Pipenv version: '11.8.3'

Pipenv location: '/home/mary/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pipenv'

Python location: '/usr/bin/python'

Other Python installations in PATH:

• 2.7: /usr/bin/python2.7

• 2.7: /usr/bin/python2.7

• 3.5: /usr/bin/python3.5m

• 3.5: /usr/bin/python3.5

• 2.7.12: /usr/bin/python

• 2.7.12: /usr/bin/python2

• 3.5.2: /usr/bin/python3

PEP 508 Information:

{'implementation_name': 'cpython',
 'implementation_version': '0',
 'os_name': 'posix',
 'platform_machine': 'x86_64',
 'platform_python_implementation': 'CPython',
 'platform_release': '4.13.0-37-generic',
 'platform_system': 'Linux',
 'platform_version': '#42~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Mar 7 16:03:28 UTC 2018',
 'python_full_version': '2.7.12',
 'python_version': '2.7',
 'sys_platform': 'linux2'}

System environment variables:

• MANDATORY_PATH
• _LXSESSION_PID
• XDG_GREETER_DATA_DIR
• PROJECT_HOME
• LC_CTYPE
• PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE
• XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
• XDG_SESSION_TYPE
• LOGNAME
• XDG_SEAT
• PATH
• XDG_VTNR
• QT_PLATFORM_PLUGIN
• PYTHONUNBUFFERED
• VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_SCRIPT
• ZSH
• DISPLAY
• SSH_AGENT_PID
• LANG
• TERM
• SHELL
• XDG_SESSION_PATH
• XAUTHORITY
• LANGUAGE
• SHLVL
• QT_LINUX_ACCESSIBILITY_ALWAYS_ON
• QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME
• SESSION_FOLDER
• QT_ACCESSIBILITY
• WINDOWID
• LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI
• HOME
• XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP
• SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN
• XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
• WORKON_HOME
• SSH_AUTH_SOCK
• VTE_VERSION
• GDMSESSION
• VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_WORKON_CD
• XDG_SEAT_PATH
• PIP_PYTHON_PATH
• XDG_SESSION_ID
• DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
• _
• VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_HOOK_DIR
• VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PROJECT_FILENAME
• DESKTOP_SESSION
• LSCOLORS
• XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
• DEFAULTS_PATH
• XDG_CONFIG_HOME
• OLDPWD
• LS_COLORS
• GDM_LANG
• XDG_DATA_DIRS
• PWD
• XDG_MENU_PREFIX
• LESS
• PAGER
• USER

Pipenv–specific environment variables:

Debug–specific environment variables:

• PATH: /home/mary/bin:/home/mary/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games
• SHELL: /usr/bin/zsh
• LANG: en_US.UTF-8
• PWD: /home/mary/Development/Projects/poor_mans_smart_camera

---

Contents of Pipfile (‘/home/mary/Development/Projects/poor_mans_smart_camera/Pipfile’):

[[source]]
url = "https://pypi.python.org/simple"
verify_ssl = true
name = "pypi"

[dev-packages]

[packages]
numpy = "*"
tensorflow = "*"

[requires]
python_version = "3.5"

---

Expected result

I expect the step in which the Pipfile.lock is generated to take at most a minute.

I have good hardware with lots of free memory and processing power, so I don’t think this is a resource constraint. My internet speed is 60 Mbps, so I doubt it is a networking issue when requesting packages.

Actual result

verbose_output.txt

While this screenshot doesn’t show verbose output like the file above, it does visually demonstrate what I am experiencing.

Steps to replicate

1. Spin up new virtualenv using pipenv --three or pipenv --two.
2. Confirm things are working as expected with a package you know is installing fine such as pipenv install pylint.
3. Now cause it to hang by installing a package that is not working for whatever reason such as pipenv install tensorflow.

Pipfile

[sersorrel]

Would it be feasible to display the package that’s currently being locked? I think that would at least help to stop people thinking that Pipenv is hanging.

[MarenstainBear]

@uranusjr @techalchemy @jtratner

Holy buckets, Batman! It worked!

mary@marvel:~
> sudo rm ~/.cache/pip* -rf
[sudo] password for mary: 

mary@marvel:~
> mktmpenv 
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/python3
Also creating executable in /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/predeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/postdeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/preactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/postactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/mary/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db/bin/get_env_details
This is a temporary environment. It will be deleted when you run 'deactivate'.
(tmp-60224356c1829db) 
mary@marvel:~/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db
> pipenv install protobuf
Creating a Pipfile for this project…
Installing protobuf…
Collecting protobuf
  Downloading protobuf-3.5.2.post1-cp35-cp35m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl (6.4MB)
Requirement already satisfied: setuptools in ./lib/python3.5/site-packages (from protobuf)
Collecting six>=1.9 (from protobuf)
  Downloading six-1.11.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: six, protobuf
Successfully installed protobuf-3.5.2.post1 six-1.11.0

Adding protobuf to Pipfile's [packages]…
Pipfile.lock not found, creating…
Locking [dev-packages] dependencies…
Locking [packages] dependencies…
Updated Pipfile.lock (735738)!
Installing dependencies from Pipfile.lock (735738)…
  🐍   ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 2/2 — 00:00:00
(tmp-60224356c1829db) 
mary@marvel:~/Development/.virtualenvs/tmp-60224356c1829db
> 

Let’s see if this solution works for some of the other people reporting the same issue. @roddds @jlhood @roveo @claytonaalves If you’re still able to reproduce pipenv hanging indefinitely at “Lock… [packages] dependencies”, try clearing your pip (and pipenv?) cache at ~/.cache/.pip and report back on whether that resolved the issue with pipenv hanging. 😃