Install fails on OS X (zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available)

[tomslot]

Using Mac OS Mojave 10.14.5, bundled_installer fails to install Python with the following errors:

BUILD FAILED (OS X 10.14.5 using python-build 20180424)

Inspect or clean up the working tree at /var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401
Results logged to /var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401.log

Last 10 log lines:
  File "/private/var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401/Python-3.7.2/Lib/ensurepip/__main__.py", line 5, in <module>
    sys.exit(ensurepip._main())
  File "/private/var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401/Python-3.7.2/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 204, in _main
    default_pip=args.default_pip,
  File "/private/var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401/Python-3.7.2/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 117, in _bootstrap
    return _run_pip(args + [p[0] for p in _PROJECTS], additional_paths)
  File "/private/var/folders/n0/xxh86gld3jb5rxnnp1rtfv4h0000gn/T/python-build.20190722131429.87401/Python-3.7.2/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 27, in _run_pip
    import pip._internal
zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available
make: *** [install] Error 1
   Exiting due to failure

==============================================
II. Creating self-contained EBCLI installation
==============================================
./bundled_installer: line 51: /Users/tomslot/.pyenv/versions/3.7.2/bin/python: No such file or directory
./bundled_installer: line 28: echo_with_indentation: command not found

Suggested workaround (installing zlib and setting CFLAGS) does not work for me.

PS. I also tried to execute:

python3 ebcli_installer.py                      

***********************************
1. Locating virtualenv installation
***********************************
ERROR: Could not find and "virtualenv" installed. Ensurevirtualenv is installed and that it is in PATH before executingthis script.

******************************************
2. Creating exclusive virtualenv for EBCLI
******************************************
/bin/sh: virtualenv: command not found

[rahulrajaram]

Hi @tomslot ,

Suggested workaround (installing zlib and setting CFLAGS) does not work for me.

Are you referring to the workaround here? Was the error the same?

PS. I also tried to execute:

You should be able to get around this particular problem after executing pip install virtualenv.

[Arjun-Aggarwal]

I am facing the same problem. Tried the suggested workaround but it didn't work

[albertocm]

Same problem here with the "zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available"...
Any solution to this?

Regards

[drupalji]

If someone else face this problem, you need to:

export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/zlib/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/zlib/include"

This way zlib will be available.

[BeyersNel]

The above in isolation did not solve this issue for me. This did though:

sudo rm -r /usr/local/opt/zlib
brew install zlib
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/zlib/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/zlib/include"

Same issue in this thread.

[rahulrajaram]

tl;dr: those of you still facing an issue on OS X with zlib/SSL not being found, consider symlinking to the packages installed by brew from /usr/local.

---

One other thing to consider if anybody is still facing the issue on a Macs is that when you brew install anything, it typically gets put inside /Library/, whereas a lot of traditional C packages such as CPython expect libraries inside /usr, /usr/local,/usr/local/opt, etc.. This is why when you brew install openssl, you can a note at the end talking about symlinking.

1. Find the package location of, say, zlib, inside /Library with a command such as:

    find /Library -name "openssl" 2>/dev/null
   

2. create a symlink to it (note: replace the placeholders <...>):

    sudo ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl /Library/<path>/openssl<version>
   

In fact, after this, I don't think you will need to export LDFLAGS and CFLAGS.

[danielinfuse]

@rahulrajaram you suggested to find a package location of zlib but provided an example of openssl. I find it confusing. Also, doing

find /Library -name "zlib" 2>/dev/null

does not yield any result on MacOS.

[vlad-ko]

after you try brew install zlib or bzip2, check your /usr/local/opt .. my symlinks were screwed up. zlib was linked to an empty dir. I had to rm -rf zlib and then reinstall it with brew again.