python/django - "Cannot use ImageField because Pillow is not installed"

Question

I'm joining a project, so I want to set up the environnment, so what I did is :

pip install -r requirements.txt

This fully installed all requirements including django 1.7.0, Pillow 2.4.0 and some others.

Then I want to build the database :

python manage.py migrate

And boom, error, I get the following :

CommandError: System check identified some issues:

ERRORS:
stu.chan.icon: (fields.E210) Cannot use ImageField because Pillow is not installed.
    HINT: Get Pillow at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow or run command "pip install pillow".
stu.chan.image: (fields.E210) Cannot use ImageField because Pillow is not installed.
    HINT: Get Pillow at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow or run command "pip install pillow".
stu.Piec.icon: (fields.E210) Cannot use ImageField because Pillow is not installed.
    HINT: Get Pillow at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow or run command "pip install pillow".

... like I didn't install Pillow. So I checked the installed package (with this technique), and Pillow 2.4.0 IS installed.

Then, I also tried to force reinstall : pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall Pillow==2.4.0

But, nothing to do I get the same error when running migrate.

I'm using python 3.4.0 and django 1.7.0 on a mac OS X 10.6.7 wrapped in virtualenv 1.11.6 with pip downgraded to pip 1.2.1 (because of some well-known-yet-not-fully-resolved-nor-understood issue with pip and ssl).

All of the code above is within virtualenv (bin/activate done).

Do you have any ideas on why this problem and how to resolve it?

- - - - - - EDIT - - - - - -

When I run the above force-reinstall command, (so many code gets outpouted I can't paste it all but) although it finishes with "Successfully installed Pillow", there's some warnings in the code :

building 'PIL._imaging' extension
 (blabla code)
    _imaging.c:975:13: warning: array index of '1' indexes past the end of an array (that contains 1 elements) [-Warray-bounds]
        value = PyTuple_GET_ITEM(xy, 1);
                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    /usr/local/include/python3.4m/tupleobject.h:58:34: note: instantiated from:
    #define PyTuple_GET_ITEM(op, i) (((PyTupleObject *)(op))->ob_item[i])
                                     ^
    /usr/local/include/python3.4m/tupleobject.h:27:5: note: array 'ob_item' declared here
        PyObject *ob_item[1];
        ^
    1 warning generated.

(blabla code)
   libImaging/Unpack.c:867:1: warning: unused function 'copy3' [-Wunused-function]
    copy3(UINT8* out, const UINT8* in, int pixels)
    ^
    1 warning generated.

Answer 1

I was having this problem on a Mac with Python 3.6.4. The solution was to uninstall Pillow 5.1.0 and instead install 5.0.0.

pip uninstall Pillow
pip install Pillow==5.0.0

Answer 2

I tried :

• Reinstall globaly PIL by compiling "Imaging-1.1.7" using some instructions here, but didn't work
• Reinstall Pillow and it's dependency globally using that link, but didn't work
• Reinstall GCC4.2 using this link, but it didn't work

I finally figured out I was in the case described in the wonderfull answer to this post. In other words, I am running a mac whose CPU is capable of 64bit but whose kernel firmware is set to 32bit. Which is a problem as the project I'm working on was built for 64bit.

As explained in that post, when you install python3 using an installer (DMG) it will sniff if the kernel is set to 32 bit and install 32bit version of python 3 accordingly. But if you just download the tarball source from python's website and install it with :

cd Python-3.4.1
./configure
make
sudo make install

Then the 64bit version of python3 should be installed. Which you can verify by doing :

file /usr/local/bin/python3
/usr/local/bin/python3: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

That done, all problems are gone with PIL/Pillow in the virtualenv using this 64bit version of python3. Even the pip downgrade became unnecessary.

Answer 3

I was too getting same problem while implememnting Image Upload using CLoudinary , but found the Above answer, but in some other way.

 sudo pip uninstall PIL

 sudo pip uninstall Pillow

 sudo pip install Pillow

After that mine Problem was solved !

Answer 4

Had a similar problem, and my solution was much simpler:

Apparently packages PIL and Pillow can't coexist. If you want to use Pillow you first have to uninstall PIL and then install Pillow.

If you are on Mac, you have to install a few libraries as well using brew. Mentioned below is the sequence of steps:

$pip uninstall PIL
$brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2
$pip install Pillow

To test if pillow is installed and ready to use, open python interpreter and try to import the following:

>>> from PIL import Image

*note that the library still says PIL but now it is importing from Pillow instead of PIL.

If you are able to successfully import then you are good to go (in all probability you won't have to worry about setting PYTHONPATH or 32/64-bit installations)

Source: https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

Answer 5

I had this error using PyCharm's debugger. I had to go to Settings->'Project Interpreter' highlight 'Pillow' and hit the little up arrow on the right to upgrade it. Then the error disappeared.

Answer 6

I do not know why, but uninstalling and then reinstalling Pillow (same version) solved this problem for me.

python -m pip uninstall Pillow
python -m pip install Pillow

The Pillow version was 7.1.1.

Answer 7

For some reason,

pip install pillow

wasnt working. so I went to the official site of pillow and used

python -m pip install --upgrade pillow

which solved my issue of installing pillow.

Answer 8

In your 'site-packages' file, download your desired pillow (.whl) file, then install it using command, 'pip install "directory"'.

I have seen that this error occurs due to wrong version of pillow, in term of bit installation in my case.

If you have 32 bit machine then you have to download 32 bit Pillow. If you have 64 bit machine then you have to download 64 bit Pillow.

In my case I was using Visual Studio but when I tried to install Pillow using PyCharm then it downloaded and installed suitable Pillow version automatically which work was not being done by Visual Studio automatically.

Visual Studio was installing Pillow wrong version again and again many times when I was trying to install Pillow by uninstalling. Basically it was fetching .whl file from cache file I guess.

Answer 9

For python3 make sure your $PYTHONPATH has the virtualenv path and Instead of running the command

python manage.py migrate

Run:

python3 manage.py migrate

Answer 10

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 My solution was

pip3 install Pillow

Not

pip install Pillow

Answer 11

If you are using Pillow 4.1.0 with Python 3.6.0 then upgrading the Python version will fix this issue. Found the solution here: https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/issues/2479#issuecomment-292252147

Answer 12

I had the same problem in my virtual environment, even though Pillow was installed. Also installing a lower version didn't help. As soon I left my virtual environment it worked. Maybe this is helping someone.

There is the command:

    (wb_env) C:\Users\Taranis\Dropbox\08_Coding\Python 
    Coding\Programme\Projekt_Webblog\tim_webblog>python manage.py makemigrations app_webblog

The error:

    SystemCheckError: System check identified some issues:

    ERRORS:
    app_webblog.BlogEntry.entry_img: (fields.E210) Cannot use ImageField because 
    Pillow is not installed.
    HINT: Get Pillow at https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/ or run command "pip install 
    Pillow".

Answer 13

What worked for me was to uninstall Pillow from user folder and install it with sudo.

Initial install was:

$ pip3 install Pillow --user

installed to: ~/.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/Pillow-7.0.0.dist-info

So first uninstalled it and then installed with sudo:

$ pip3 uninstall Pillow
$ sudo pip3 install Pillow

new location: /usr/local/lib64/python3.7/site-packages/Pillow-7.0.0.dist-info and problem was fixed.

Answer 14

Window users

First Uninstall Pip

pip uninstall Pillow

Then Install it Again

pip install Pillow

Ubuntu users

First Uninstall Pip

sudo pip uninstall Pillow

Then Install it Again

sudo pip install Pillow

I Hope It will works for you