ImportError: No module named site when starting code in terminal after Python 3.8 was installed on MacOS

[nikolaj-lisberg-hansen]

Issue Type: Bug

Bacause Python 2 is being deprecated I installed Python 3 on MacOS with Catalina ,using the now standard zsh, instead of bash shell.

FIxed issue with having both Python 3.8 and 2.7 by adding these lines in

~/.zshrc and ~/.bash_profile

alias python=python3
alias pip=pip3
unset PYTHONPATH
unset PYTHONHOME

Root cause is Visual Studio code bash script, that is used to start the app from a Terminal. The dependency on Python in bash script, could be avoided in

Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code

#!/usr/bin/env bash

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Licensed under the MIT License. See License.txt in the project root for license information.

Workaround for "ImportError: No module named site" with both python 2.7 and 3.8 and zsh in MacOS Catalina instead of bash

Fix is not to use Python but just standard bash to resolve symbolic links

--- Remove lines related to python:

function realpath() { python -c "import os, sys; print(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[1]))" "$0"; }

CONTENTS="$(dirname $(dirname $(dirname $(realpath "$0" ))))"

--- Start fix: Add standard bash logic for resolving symbolic links

Get code symbolic link /usr/local/bin/code symbolic link

CODE="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}"

Find Contents path in /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code

CONTENTS=ls -dal $CODE | awk '{ print substr($11 " " $12 " " $13,0,length($11 " " $12 " " $13)-length("/Resources/app/bin/code"))}'

--- End fix

ELECTRON="$CONTENTS/MacOS/Electron"
CLI="$CONTENTS/Resources/app/out/cli.js"
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 "$ELECTRON" "$CLI" "$@"
exit $?

VS Code version: Code 1.41.1 (26076a4, 2019-12-18T14:57:51.166Z)
OS version: Darwin x64 19.2.0

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) m3-6Y30 CPU @ 0.90GHz (4 x 1100)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled metal: disabled_off multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on oop_rasterization: unavailable_off protected_video_decode: unavailable_off rasterization: unavailable_off skia_renderer: disabled_off surface_control: disabled_off surface_synchronization: enabled_on video_decode: enabled viz_display_compositor: enabled_on viz_hit_test_surface_layer: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	2, 2, 2
Memory (System)	8.00GB (0.12GB free)
Process Argv	-psn_0_225335
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (2)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
vscode-docker	ms-	0.9.0
python	ms-	2020.1.58038

[joaomoreno]

The Python code we have there is compatible with both 2 and 3. If you see an error it might be because you have a broken Python installation. Can you confirm?

[vscodebot]

This issue has been closed automatically because it needs more information and has not had recent activity. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!