When using python/pip to install a module, it is possible to receive the error Cannot remove entries from nonexistent file <some path>/easy-install.pth
There are a couple of Q/A's here on Stack Overflow about very specific cases of this (e.g. Anaconda and Tensorflow). I'm more curious about the general case. What exactly does this error mean, and what causes it?
(For my specific case, I am trying to install the docker3.4.0 module with python2.7/pip10.0.1, and adding --ignore-installed to the pip arguments does not remove the error. I was able to work around this issue by creating an empty easy-install.pth at the specified location, but that seems like an unhealthy fix.)
Why would an easy-install.pth file go missing, and what are the possible repercussions of a missing easy-install.pth?
