Installer crash on Mac OS X 10.9.2 (crashed on child side of fork pre-exec)

[mirajshah]

I am attempting to install matplotlib with pip (Python 2.7.6) on the latest update of OS X Mavericks (10.9.2). I have installed all of the dependencies for matplotlib, as indicated by the installer output:

BUILDING MATPLOTLIB
                matplotlib: yes [1.4.x]
                    python: yes [2.7.6 (default, Mar  3 2014, 23:22:06)  [GCC
                            4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 5.0 (clang-500.2.79)]]
                  platform: yes [darwin]

    REQUIRED DEPENDENCIES AND EXTENSIONS
                     numpy: yes [version 1.8.0]
                       six: yes [using six version 1.6.1]
                  dateutil: yes [using dateutil version 2.2]
                   tornado: yes [using tornado version 3.2]
                 pyparsing: yes [using pyparsing version 2.0.1]
                     pycxx: yes [Using system CXX (version unknown, no pkg-
                            config info)]
                    libagg: yes [Requires patches that have not been merged
                            upstream. Using local copy.]
                  freetype: yes [version 17.2.11]
                       png: yes [version 1.5.18]
                     qhull: yes [pkg-config information for 'qhull' could not be
                            found. Using local copy.]

    Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Get: no current thread

As you can see from the last line of that output, the install crashes after checking for these dependencies, with the following crash report from OS X:

Process:         Python [5877]
Path:            /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.6/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python
Identifier:      Python
Version:         2.7.6 (2.7.6)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  Python [5855]
Responsible:     Terminal [910]
User ID:         501

Date/Time:       2014-03-15 11:40:35.299 -0400
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.9.2 (13C64)
Report Version:  11
Anonymous UUID:  6B232CBA-3FF6-3451-9E5D-36A95941A84B


Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
crashed on child side of fork pre-exec

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

[mirajshah]

This issue was actually resolved elsewhere, and has to do with using homebrew and python. For some reason, my installed CXX libraries were not interacting properly with the installer. Since matplotlib packages its own CXX libraries, the solution for me was to run sudo find / -name CXX, delete all instances of CXX, and install matplotlib with homebrew instead of pip (brew install matplotlib). See https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-python/issues/56