pypa/pip · error · UninstallMissingRecord

uninstall-no-record-file

uninstall-no-record-file

Error message

Cannot uninstall {distribution}

What it means

UninstallMissingRecord (InstallationError subclass with code 'uninstall-no-record-file') raised by uninstallation_paths when the installed distribution has no RECORD file. RECORD (PEP 376/427) lists every file belonging to a dist; without it pip cannot enumerate what to remove and aborts. The error code lets tooling branch on this specific cause.

Source

Thrown at src/pip/_internal/req/req_uninstall.py:77

    """
    Yield all the uninstallation paths for dist based on RECORD-without-.py[co]

    Yield paths to all the files in RECORD. For each .py file in RECORD, add
    the .pyc and .pyo in the same directory.

    UninstallPathSet.add() takes care of the __pycache__ .py[co].

    If RECORD is not found, raises an error,
    with possible information from the INSTALLER file.

    https://packaging.python.org/specifications/recording-installed-packages/
    """
    location = dist.location
    assert location is not None, "not installed"

    entries = dist.iter_declared_entries()
    if entries is None:
        raise UninstallMissingRecord(distribution=dist)

    for entry in entries:
        path = os.path.join(location, entry)
        yield path
        if path.endswith(".py"):
            dn, fn = os.path.split(path)
            base = fn[:-3]
            path = os.path.join(dn, base + ".pyc")
            yield path
            path = os.path.join(dn, base + ".pyo")
            yield path


def compact(paths: Iterable[str]) -> set[str]:
    """Compact a path set to contain the minimal number of paths
    necessary to contain all paths in the set. If /a/path/ and
    /a/path/to/a/file.txt are both in the set, leave only the
    shorter path."""

View on GitHub (pinned to d7d0d0a394)

Solutions

1. Reinstall the package with pip first ('pip install --force-reinstall <pkg>') so a proper RECORD is written, then 'pip uninstall <pkg>'.
2. If the package was installed by your OS package manager, remove it via that manager (apt/dnf/etc.) instead of pip.
3. Manually locate and remove the .dist-info directory and the package files, then verify with 'pip list'.
4. Avoid 'python setup.py install' going forward; use 'pip install .'.

Example fix

# before
pip uninstall foo   # UninstallMissingRecord

# after
pip install --force-reinstall foo && pip uninstall foo

def has_record(dist_info_dir: str) -> bool:
    import os
    return os.path.isfile(os.path.join(dist_info_dir, 'RECORD'))

def is_pip_uninstallable(dist) -> bool:
    return dist.iter_declared_entries() is not None

from pip._internal.exceptions import UninstallMissingRecord
try:
    run_pip(['uninstall', '-y', 'pkg'])
except UninstallMissingRecord:
    run_pip(['install', '--force-reinstall', '--no-deps', 'pkg'])
    run_pip(['uninstall', '-y', 'pkg'])

When it happens

Trigger: Running 'pip uninstall <pkg>' where <pkg>'s .dist-info directory has no RECORD (dist.iter_declared_entries() returns None). Common for packages installed by non-pip tools or older installers that did not write RECORD.

Common situations: Distutils/easy_install installs; OS-packaged Python wheels installed by the system package manager; packages installed with 'python setup.py install' (legacy); manually copied-in distributions.

Related errors

• uninstall-distutils-installed-package
• You must give at least one requirement to {self.name} (see "
• <dynamic: upload-time missing detail>
• Bad metadata in {dist} (invalid metadata entry 'name')
• Error decoding metadata for {wheel}: {e} in {filename} file

AI-assisted analysis of pypa/pip@d7d0d0a394 (2026-08-04). Data as JSON: /data/errors/34e7d11bea8bf4c7.json. Report an issue: GitHub.