pip path_encoding ai_generated true

pip install fails with UnicodeDecodeError in virtualenv with Korean path

ID: pip/pip-install-nonascii-venv-path

Also available as: JSON · Markdown

85%Fix Rate

88%Confidence

4Evidence

2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

Version	Status	Introduced	Deprecated	Notes
23	active	—	—	—

pip install fails when virtualenv is created inside a directory with Korean characters and locale is not UTF-8.

generic

90% success Create virtualenv in an ASCII path and symlink or set VIRTUAL_ENV
```
python -m venv /opt/venvs/myproject && source /opt/venvs/myproject/bin/activate
```
Sources: https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html
92% success Set PYTHONUTF8=1 and ensure system locale is UTF-8 before creating venv
```
export PYTHONUTF8=1 LANG=ko_KR.UTF-8 && python -m venv ./venv && pip install -r requirements.txt
```
Sources: https://docs.python.org/3/using/cmdline.html#envvar-PYTHONUTF8

Common approaches that don't work:

Recreate the virtualenv with --clear flag 90% fail
Recreating in the same Korean path will reproduce the same encoding error
Use pip install --no-cache-dir 85% fail
Cache is not the issue; the path encoding during extraction is the problem