Manually remove Python package on Heroku

Question

I was running heroku push master, and got this:

 ----- Python app detected
 ----- No runtime.txt provided; assuming python-2.7.3.
 ----- Using Python runtime (python-2.7.3)
 ----- Installing dependencies using Pip (1.2.1)
        Downloading/unpacking Django-1.5c2 from https://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.5c2/tarball (from -r
                                                                                                             requirements.txt (line 1))
          Cannot determine compression type for file /tmp/pip-rYIGHS-unpack/tarball.ksh
          Running setup.py egg_info for package Django-1.5c2

        Installing collected packages: Django-1.5c2
          Running setup.py install for Django-1.5c2
            changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/django-admin.py from 600 to 755

            changing mode of /app/.heroku/python/bin/django-admin.py to 755


            ========
            WARNING!
            ========

            You have just installed Django over top of an existing
            installation, without removing it first. Because of this,
            your install may now include extraneous files from a
            previous version that have since been removed from
            Django. This is known to cause a variety of problems. You
            should manually remove the

            /app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django

            directory and re-install Django.

        Successfully installed Django-1.5c2

How can I remove the previous Django package?

UPDATE: My requirements.txt:

https://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.5c2/tarball/**#egg=django**
South==0.7.6
argparse==1.2.1
distribute==0.6.24
dj-database-url==0.2.1
psycopg2==2.4.6
wsgiref==0.1.2
PIL==1.1.7

The text in bold fixed the above warning.

UPDATE 2: Since Django 1.5 was officially released, I just used pip freeze:

Django==1.5
South==0.7.6
argparse==1.2.1
distribute==0.6.24
dj-database-url==0.2.1
psycopg2==2.4.6
wsgiref==0.1.2
PIL==1.1.7

How is Django specified in your `requirements.txt`? Are you telling it to use a particular version? — culix, Feb 25 '13 at 03:27
@metroxylon Check what happens with your dyno when you push changes `heroku logs -t`. Try to delete `Django==1.5` from requirement, commit, push to heroku, then add and commit with django. — b1_, Mar 01 '13 at 07:27
Heroku doesn't recognize the change when you switch from a pypi install to a github. it won't install the github version over the pypi version. — B Robster, Feb 09 '14 at 05:10

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '13 at 07:25

20

I've had problems where Heroku caches broken packages and there's no way to get them out. The Python buildpack should have some kind of support for flushing this cache (CACHE_DIR), but it does not.

There is a workaround: follow these instructions to change your Python runtime to, for instance, 3.3.0 (it doesn't matter if your app actually supports Python 3 or not). Then change it back to the default. The act of changing your Python runtime and then deploying will force the buildpack to totally erase the cache. As far as I know this is the only practical way to erase the cache at the moment.

answered Mar 01 '13 at 07:25

Andrew Gorcester

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This fixed the problem for me. I tried manually running `heroku run pip uninstall my_package` which "worked" (didn't fail) but the package was still in the system and causing me problems. Thanks for the tip! – Micah Nov 27 '13 at 13:08
Yep, still works as of today. Changing (or adding for the first time) runtime.txt and then re-deploying causes Heroku to create a fresh runtime environment, effectively destroying any legacy issues such as the refusal to overwrite previously installed packages from PYPI with a different version of the same package from a github url. – B Robster Feb 09 '14 at 05:16
Doesn't work for me... I mean, it did when I changed the runtime to a different version of python, but when I then changed it back to the one I actually wanted to use, it used the old cache. – Phil Gyford Jul 07 '16 at 17:13
@Micah I was about to rage stomp my laptop having the same problem untill i read your comment, tks – wolfgang Jun 02 '17 at 07:58
I had a problem with heroku complaining that psycpg2 package wasn't found, this solved it. Thank you! – Alexander Aug 02 '21 at 17:54

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 28 '20 at 00:06

Push current virtenv package to file

pip freeze > requirements.txt

Commit

git commit -am 'update packages'

And push to heroku

git push heroku

Then heroku will rebuild the environment

Counting objects: 13, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (11/11), done.
Writing objects: 100% (13/13), 1.26 KiB, done.
Total 13 (delta 3), reused 0 (delta 0)
-----> Python app detected
-----> No runtime.txt provided; assuming python-2.7.3.
-----> Preparing Python runtime (python-2.7.3)
-----> Installing Distribute (0.6.34)
-----> Installing Pip (1.2.1)
-----> Installing dependencies using Pip (1.2.1)
Downloading/unpacking Flask==0.9 (from -r requirements.txt (line 1))
Running setup.py egg_info for package Flask

This is what a I did (except for the external egg). Will update with my requirements.txt — blaze, Feb 28 '13 at 22:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 09 '21 at 11:26

Thought I removed the faulting package and all other packages that depends on it but nope. Each time I deploy I keep getting an error. Finally I somehow striped out all other packages that depends on the faulting package and everything worked perfectly. Hope somebody will find this useful

Manually remove Python package on Heroku

3 Answers3

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