Install problem how to fix

[Vortexmeow]

message from the picture

(venv) PS C:\Users\User\odysseus> pip install -r requirements.txt
ERROR: Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\cli\base_command.py", line 180, in exc_logging_wrapper
status = run_func(*args)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\cli\req_command.py", line 248, in wrapper
return func(self, options, args)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\commands\install.py", line 342, in run
reqs = self.get_requirements(args, options, finder, session)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\cli\req_command.py", line 436, in get_requirements
for parsed_req in parse_requirements(
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\req\req_file.py", line 148, in parse_requirements
for parsed_line in parser.parse(filename, constraint):
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\req\req_file.py", line 335, in parse
yield from self._parse_and_recurse(filename, constraint)
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\req\req_file.py", line 340, in _parse_and_recurse
for line in self._parse_file(filename, constraint):
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\req\req_file.py", line 371, in _parse_file
_, content = get_file_content(filename, self._session)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\req\req_file.py", line 549, in get_file_content
content = auto_decode(f.read())
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\User\odysseus\venv\Lib\site-packages\pip_internal\utils\encoding.py", line 34, in auto_decode
return data.decode(
^^^^^^^^^^^^
UnicodeDecodeError: 'cp950' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 292: illegal multibyte sequence
WARNING: There was an error checking the latest version of pip.

How to fix it

[sueun-dev]

that traceback ending at get_file_content -> auto_decode(f.read()) isn't a missing dependency, it's pip choking on the file's encoding. pip reads requirements.txt and, with no BOM present, decodes it using your Windows codepage, so a file that isn't clean UTF-8 throws UnicodeDecodeError before anything installs.

the requirements.txt committed in the repo is actually fine, valid UTF-8 (I checked the raw bytes, sha 2c40729). So it's your local copy that got re-saved in another encoding, which is easy to do on Windows when you recreate it with PowerShell > or save from an editor as UTF-16/ANSI.

fastest fix: restore a clean copy with git checkout -- requirements.txt or re-download the raw file, then run pip install -r requirements.txt again. if it still dies, open the file and look for a ÿþ / null-byte header, that's the UTF-16 tell.

[Vortexmeow]

Thanks for helping
but how to restore it？I don't know how to use git, I changed another python and it still same
ps. I use windows and install odysseus by powershell or cmd

[sacb0y]

I had to use venv to install the requirements on windows.

This is what copilot told me to do and it worked.

# Make sure you're in the project root
cd C:\Users\{user}\odysseus

# Activate venv
.\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# Try installing again with verbose output to see what's happening
pip install -r requirements-optional.txt -v

[Vortexmeow]

Thank you it works when I upgrade pip from 23.1.2 to 26.1.2

[sacb0y]

Glad that worked for you i pointed this out here that it might be confusing to people (at least a wiki would help)