ERROR pip build_error ai_generated true

ERROR: Failed to build installable wheels for some pyproject.toml based projects (build isolation)

ID: pip/build-isolation-failed

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85%Fix Rate
88%Confidence
50Evidence
2023-06-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
24 active — — —

Root Cause

Build isolation creates a temporary virtualenv for building. Fails when build dependencies cannot be resolved or installed in the isolated environment, often due to missing system libraries or circular dependencies.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 90% success Install build dependencies first, then use --no-build-isolation for the specific package 
    pip install setuptools wheel cython numpy && pip install --no-build-isolation <package>
  2. 85% success Install required system libraries for compilation (e.g., libffi-dev, python3-dev) 
    apt-get install build-essential python3-dev libffi-dev && pip install <package>

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Use --no-build-isolation globally for all packages 65% fail

    Disabling build isolation can cause dependency pollution and break other packages that require clean builds

  2. Downgrade pip to avoid build isolation 70% fail

    Old pip versions have worse dependency resolution and more bugs; build isolation is there for good reason

Error Chain

Leads to:
Preceded by:
Frequently confused with: