Build fails with setuptools 81+ due to pkg_resources removal

[mabunassar]

Description

Problem

CLIP fails to build with setuptools 82+ because setup.py imports pkg_resources, which was removed in setuptools 81 (08 Feb 2026).

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pkg_resources'

The failing line in setup.py:

from pkg_resources import packaging

Suggested fix

Replace pkg_resources.packaging with packaging from the standalone packaging library:

  # Before
  from pkg_resources import packaging

  # After
  import packaging.version

And add packaging to the build dependencies in setup.py or migrate to a pyproject.toml build system.

Workaround

Pin setuptools to <81 and disable build isolation for CLIP.

Environment

  - Python 3.11
  - setuptools 82+
  - uv / pip

[dshepelev15]

Have the same issue

[amartinpascual]

Same issue here

[Saladino]

Same issue here

[yakulex]

Same issue, worked after downgrading setuptools to 80 and pip to 25

[z-jiaming]

Fix by

pip install "setuptools>=65.0.0,<81"
pip install "pip==25.0"

[ArmadstheDoom]

Fix by

pip install "setuptools>=65.0.0,<81"
pip install "pip==25.0"

This is wrong. Namely because it doesn't work, and it will just say that it's already installed.

[ArmadstheDoom]

Same issue, worked after downgrading setuptools to 80 and pip to 25

would you mind explaining how you did that?

[z-jiaming]

Fix by

pip install "setuptools>=65.0.0,<81"
pip install "pip==25.0"

This is wrong. Namely because it doesn't work, and it will just say that it's already installed.

But I fixed it right now.

[ArmadstheDoom]

Fix by

pip install "setuptools>=65.0.0,<81"
pip install "pip==25.0"

This is wrong. Namely because it doesn't work, and it will just say that it's already installed.

But I fixed it right now.

Great, still doesn't work.

[yakulex]

This is wrong. Namely because it doesn't work, and it will just say that it's already installed.

Try this

pip install --force-reinstall pip==25.2 setuptools==80.10.2

[Iionccub365]

This is wrong. Namely because it doesn't work, and it will just say that it's already installed.

Try this

pip install --force-reinstall pip==25.2 setuptools==80.10.2

This worked for me! Setuptools<81 and pip<25.3 appears to be the solution. pip 25.3 deprecates the legacy setup and setuptools 81 removes pkg_resources

[codehia]

With setuptools==80.10.2, pip install <> --no-build-isolation worked for me without changing the pip version.