zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

Question

On RHEL 6.6, I installed Python 3.5.1 from source. I am trying to install pip3 via get-pip.py, but I get

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "get-pip.py", line 19177, in <module>
    main()
  File "get-pip.py", line 194, in main
    bootstrap(tmpdir=tmpdir)
  File "get-pip.py", line 82, in bootstrap
    import pip
zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

It works for the Python 2.6.6 installed. I have looked online for answers, but I cannot seem to find any that works for me.

edit: yum search zlib

jzlib.i686 : JZlib re-implementation of zlib in pure Java
perl-Compress-Raw-Zlib.i686 : Low-Level Interface to the zlib compression library
perl-Compress-Zlib.i686 : A module providing Perl interfaces to the zlib compression library
perl-IO-Zlib.i686 : Perl IO:: style interface to Compress::Zlib
zlib.i686 : The zlib compression and decompression library
zlib-debuginfo.i686 : Debug information for package zlib
zlib-devel.i686 : Header files and libraries for Zlib development
perl-IO-Compress-Zlib.i686 : Perl interface to allow reading and writing of gzip and zip data

  Name and summary matches only, use "search all" for everything.

I run python3 get-pip.py to show the error message above, but it works for python get-pip.py. Yes, I can run yum search zlib. — Flair, Jun 27 '16 at 17:36
Based on your comments, you do have zlib installed, but perhaps there's a python-zlib wrapper you need? — Edward Falk, Jun 27 '16 at 19:10
I fixed this by copying zlib.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so to /usr/local/lib/python*/lib-dynaload. — Ralf, May 07 '19 at 14:56

score 166 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 27 '20 at 10:49

166

Ubuntu 16.10+ and Python 3.7 dev

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Note: I only put this here because it was the top search result for the error, but this resolved my issue.

Update: also the case for ubuntu 14.04LTS and base kernel at 4.1+

edited Oct 27 '20 at 10:49

Nam G VU

501

answered Jan 01 '17 at 12:53

jmunsch

4,346

4

Thanks! it helped me resolve the issue installing 3.7.1 on Ubuntu 18.04 – daonb Dec 06 '18 at 11:29
3

Helped resolve issue for python3+ on Ubuntu 20 – dannypaz Aug 17 '20 at 07:49

score 55 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '16 at 10:41

55

The solution is : # yum install zlib-devel

answered Jun 24 '16 at 10:41

Knud Larsen

2,114

5

I tried that. It says Setting up Install Process rhel6_latest | 1.9 kB 00:00 Package zlib-devel-1.2.3-29.el6.i686 already installed and latest version Nothing to do, but I still get the zipimport error. – Flair Jun 27 '16 at 17:32
1

did not solve my problem – Srinivas Reddy Thatiparthy Sep 28 '18 at 08:32
This should be the current answer. Thanks – james-see Oct 08 '19 at 18:18

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 07 '19 at 07:16

9

Simply copy paste this code:

CFLAGS="-I$(brew --prefix readline)/include -I$(brew --prefix openssl)/include -I$(xcrun --show-sdk-path)/usr/include" \
LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix readline)/lib -L$(brew --prefix openssl)/lib" \
PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS=--enable-unicode=ucs2 \
pyenv install -v 3.6.0

answered Jun 07 '19 at 07:16

Arayan Singh

191

1

This doesn't seem like RHEL. – Kirk Broadhurst Dec 02 '20 at 23:57
1

It's macOS only solution (and brew also should be installed as pre-requisite). Still - good partial solution – Alfishe Feb 25 '21 at 21:40

AReddy · Answer 4 · 2016-06-28T03:41:07.820

3

you don't have decompress tool,You should install zlib .

Updated Answer

first check if its installed

yum list python-gzipstream

If not then run the below to install

yum install python-gzipstream.noarch

I have this installed on my system

 yum list python-gzipstream
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: centos.webwerks.com
 * epel: ftp.kddilabs.jp
 * extras: centos.webwerks.com
 * updates: mirror.nbrc.ac.in
Available Packages
python-gzipstream.noarch                                                                1.4.3-1.el6                                                                 epel

edited Jun 28 '16 at 03:41

answered Jun 24 '16 at 03:55

AReddy

3,172
5
36
76

4

I ran yum install zlib. I get that I already have the latest version. I still get the same error. – Flair Jun 27 '16 at 17:34
check the updated answer – AReddy Jun 28 '16 at 03:41
1

For yum list python-gzipstream, I get Error: No matching Packages to list, and for yum install python-gzipstream.noarch, I get No package python-gzipstream.noarch available. Error: Nothing to do – Flair Jun 28 '16 at 20:28
can you show is us the output of yum repolist & yum search zlib. – AReddy Jun 29 '16 at 03:46
For repolist, repo id repo name status rhel6_latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6Server - i386 - latest 11,637 repolist: 11,637 – Flair Jun 29 '16 at 23:04
I put the search results in the edited question. – Flair Jun 29 '16 at 23:08

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 10 '17 at 04:45

Throwing my 2cents. I've been dealing with this issue for the past 3 hours and realized that python3.6 for me was installed was in /usr/local/bin/.

I remade the configure with --prefix==/usr/bin and pip installed.

Installing collected packages: setuptools, pip Successfully installed pip-9.0.1 setuptools-28.8.0

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 14 '17 at 12:25

The zlib module is an optional feature for python and it seems that the version of python3.5 in RHEL 6.6 does not include it. You can verify this:

python3 -c "import zlib"

So you'll either need to obtain a zlib enabled version of python (or python libraries) or rebuild python from source with the zlib feature enabled - see here for help: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12344970/building-python-from-source-with-zlib-support

zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

6 Answers6