Error installing sentence-transformers with pip in Windows 10 -> Error: Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully

[jstoppa]

I'm trying to install sentence-transformers in Windows 10 and I can't get it to work.

Version:

• Python: 3.12.0
• Pip: 24.0
• PyTorch: 2.2.0
• Transformers: 4.37.2

I followed the guide in here https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers?tab=readme-ov-file#installation

pip install -U sentence-transformers

I get the following error:

Collecting sentence-transformers
  Using cached sentence_transformers-2.3.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (11 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: transformers<5.0.0,>=4.32.0 in c:\xlf_git\ai_env\lib\site-packages (from sentence-transformers) (4.37.2)
Requirement already satisfied: tqdm in c:\xlf_git\ai_env\lib\site-packages (from sentence-transformers) (4.66.1)
Requirement already satisfied: torch>=1.11.0 in c:\xlf_git\ai_env\lib\site-packages (from sentence-transformers) (2.2.0)
Requirement already satisfied: numpy in c:\xlf_git\ai_env\lib\site-packages (from sentence-transformers) (1.26.1)
Collecting scikit-learn (from sentence-transformers)
  Using cached scikit_learn-1.4.0-1-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl.metadata (11 kB)
Collecting scipy (from sentence-transformers)
  Using cached scipy-1.12.0-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl.metadata (60 kB)
Collecting nltk (from sentence-transformers)
  Using cached nltk-3.8.1-py3-none-any.whl (1.5 MB)
Collecting sentencepiece (from sentence-transformers)
  Using cached sentencepiece-0.1.99.tar.gz (2.6 MB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [31 lines of output]
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "C:\XLF_GIT\ai_env\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 353, in <module>
          main()
        File "C:\XLF_GIT\ai_env\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 335, in main
          json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\XLF_GIT\ai_env\Lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pyproject_hooks\_in_process\_in_process.py", line 118, in get_requires_for_build_wheel     
          return hook(config_settings)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-sikeuhr9\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 325, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          return self._get_build_requires(config_settings, requirements=['wheel'])
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-sikeuhr9\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 295, in _get_build_requires
          self.run_setup()
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-sikeuhr9\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 480, in run_setup       
          super(_BuildMetaLegacyBackend, self).run_setup(setup_script=setup_script)
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-sikeuhr9\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 311, in run_setup       
          exec(code, locals())
        File "<string>", line 126, in <module>
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\subprocess.py", line 408, in check_call
          retcode = call(*popenargs, **kwargs)
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\subprocess.py", line 389, in call
          with Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs) as p:
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\subprocess.py", line 1026, in __init__
          self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
        File "C:\Users\jstop\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\Lib\subprocess.py", line 1538, in _execute_child
          hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified
      [end of output]
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> See above for output.

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

any idea what I could be doing wrong?

[tomaarsen]

Hello!

It seems that sentencepiece does not support Python 3.12, most likely. See also google/sentencepiece#968 and google/sentencepiece#932. You can use Python 3.11, or use conda, it seems.

• Tom Aarsen

[jstoppa]

thanks, trying now with Python 3.11, I'll let everyone here know if it works. Now I remember I had the same issue with open interpreter

[jstoppa]

@tomaarsen you are absolutely right, it works with Python 3.11.
Closing the issue
Thanks