Python 2.7: import virtualenv error: ImportError: No module named entry_points_selectable

Issue

Virtualenv 20.6.0 does not work on Python 2.7.16 on Linux Installed with command:

python2.7 -m pip install virtualenv

tomcat@tomcat:~/$ python2.7
Python 2.7.16 (default, Oct  7 2019, 17:36:04) 
[GCC 8.3.0] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import virtualenv
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/tomcat/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
    from .run import cli_run, session_via_cli
  File "/home/tomcat/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv/run/__init__.py", line 13, in <module>
    from .plugin.activators import ActivationSelector
  File "/home/tomcat/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv/run/plugin/activators.py", line 6, in <module>
    from .base import ComponentBuilder
  File "/home/tomcat/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv/run/plugin/base.py", line 5, in <module>
    from backports.entry_points_selectable import entry_points
ImportError: No module named entry_points_selectable
>>>

<module 'backports' from '/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/backports/__init__.pyc'>

Environment

Provide at least:

• OS: Linux Ubuntu 19.04
• pip list of the host python where virtualenv is installed:

tomcat@tomcat:~/$ python2.7 -m pip list
Package                            Version    
---------------------------------- -----------
alembic                            1.0.6      
asn1crypto                         0.24.0     
backports.entry-points-selectable  1.1.0      
backports.functools-lru-cache      1.5        
backports.shutil-get-terminal-size 1.0.0      
banal                              0.4.2      
beautifulsoup4                     4.7.1      
certifi                            2018.11.29 
chardet                            3.0.4      
configparser                       4.0.2      
contextlib2                        0.6.0.post1
cryptography                       2.3        
dataset                            1.1.0      
decorator                          4.3.0      
distlib                            0.3.2      
entrypoints                        0.3        
enum34                             1.1.6      
filelock                           3.0.12     
idna                               2.8        
importlib-metadata                 2.1.1      
importlib-resources                3.3.1      
ipaddress                          1.0.17     
ipython                            5.8.0      
ipython-genutils                   0.2.0      
keyring                            17.1.1     
keyrings.alt                       3.1.1      
Mako                               1.0.7      
MarkupSafe                         1.1.0      
normality                          1.0.0      
pathlib2                           2.3.3      
pexpect                            4.6.0      
pickleshare                        0.7.5      
pip                                18.1       
platformdirs                       2.0.2      
prompt-toolkit                     1.0.15     
pycrypto                           2.6.1      
Pygments                           2.3.1      
PyGObject                          3.32.0     
PyICU                              2.2        
pyTelegramBotAPI                   3.7.2      
python-dateutil                    2.7.5      
python-editor                      1.0.3      
pyxdg                              0.25       
requests                           2.21.0     
scandir                            1.9.0      
SecretStorage                      2.3.1      
setuptools                         40.8.0     
simplegeneric                      0.8.1      
singledispatch                     3.6.2      
six                                1.12.0     
soupsieve                          1.7.1      
SQLAlchemy                         1.2.16     
traitlets                          4.3.2      
typing                             3.10.0.0   
urllib3                            1.24.1     
virtualenv                         20.6.0     
wcwidth                            0.1.7      
wheel                              0.32.3     
zipp                               1.2.0

Output of the virtual environment creation

Make sure to run the creation with -vvv --with-traceback:

Can you please suggest which prev version I should use?

[joaodelgado13]

I had the same problem, try 20.4.7

[gaborbernat]

Seems a pip issue, so closing.