ERROR pip system_error ai_generated true

ERROR: Could not install packages due to an OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

ID: pip/no-space-left

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
92%Fix Rate
95%Confidence
50Evidence
2022-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
24 active — — —

Root Cause

The filesystem is full during pip install. Pip needs space for downloading, caching, and extracting packages. Often occurs in Docker containers with small /tmp or in CI environments with limited disk.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 90% success Clear pip cache and tmp, then retry: pip cache purge && rm -rf /tmp/pip-* 
    pip cache purge && rm -rf /tmp/pip-* /tmp/pip-build-* && pip install <package>
  2. 92% success Redirect pip temp directory to a larger partition using TMPDIR 
    export TMPDIR=/mnt/larger-disk/tmp && mkdir -p $TMPDIR && pip install <package>
  3. 88% success In Docker, increase build layer size or use multi-stage builds 
    Use multi-stage Docker build: install in builder stage with more space, copy only site-packages to final image

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Run pip install with --no-cache-dir alone 50% fail

    While it helps marginally, the extracted package and build artifacts still need disk space; if the disk is truly full, this is insufficient

  2. Delete random files to free space without checking what uses disk 60% fail

    May delete critical system files or virtualenv; the pip cache or /tmp build files are usually the culprits

Error Chain

Leads to:
Preceded by:
Frequently confused with: