python - pip cannot install anything

Question

> pip install yolk
Downloading/unpacking yolk
  Cannot fetch index base URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/
  Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement yolk
No distributions at all found for yolk
Storing complete log in /Users/harith/.pip/pip.log

when I read the file I see

> cat /Users/harith/.pip/pip.log
------------------------------------------------------------
/Users/harith/.shared/virtualenvs/pennytracker/bin/pip run on Mon Jul  1 20:26:02 2013
Downloading/unpacking yolk

  Getting page https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/
  Could not fetch URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/: HTTP Error 503: Service Unavailable
  Will skip URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/ when looking for download links for yolk
  Getting page https://pypi.python.org/simple/
  Could not fetch URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/: HTTP Error 503: Service Unavailable
  Will skip URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/ when looking for download links for yolk
  Cannot fetch index base URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/

  URLs to search for versions for yolk:
  * https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/
  Getting page https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/
  Could not fetch URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/: HTTP Error 503: Service Unavailable
  Will skip URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/yolk/ when looking for download links for yolk
  Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement yolk

No distributions at all found for yolk

    Exception information:
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/Users/harith/.shared/virtualenvs/pennytracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.3.1-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 139, in main
        status = self.run(options, args)
      File "/Users/harith/.shared/virtualenvs/pennytracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.3.1-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 266, in run
        requirement_set.prepare_files(finder, force_root_egg_info=self.bundle, bundle=self.bundle)
      File "/Users/harith/.shared/virtualenvs/pennytracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.3.1-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1026, in prepare_files
        url = finder.find_requirement(req_to_install, upgrade=self.upgrade)
      File "/Users/harith/.shared/virtualenvs/pennytracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.3.1-py2.7.egg/pip/index.py", line 171, in find_requirement
        raise DistributionNotFound('No distributions at all found for %s' % req)
    DistributionNotFound: No distributions at all found for yolk

Am i doing anything wrong?

Answer 1

I used to use the easy_install pip==1.2.1 workaround but I randomly found that if you're having this bug, you probably installed a 32bit version of python on a 64bit machine.

In short : If you install a 64bit version of it by installing it from the source and then build your virtualenv upon it, you wont have that pip bug anymore.