Ipython Nameerror: Name 'pkg_resources' Is Not Defined

Out of the blue my IPython Kernel stopped working, repeatedly failing to restart. The error message is shown below. I have no idea what triggered this, and how to fix it. I tried u

Solution 1:

I get a similar error recently after installing a specific package with anaconda using "sudo". The installation upgraded some core package used by ipython and obviously changed the permission associated with them. Using "sudo" while lauching ipython solved the issue.

Solution 2:

I also got this error after installing specific packages in an anaconda distribution as root. This was fixed by changing ownership of the anaconda directory ie

chown -R myname:mygroup anaconda_dir

Should be prevented by installing packages as user rather than as root