I’m facing difficulties while trying to install the complete version of OpenAI Gym on my Windows system. The initial setup runs smoothly, but when I attempt to include all the additional features, I end up with several build errors.
Here’s the successful part of my installation:
git clone https://github.com/openai/gym.git
cd gym
pip install -e .
This step worked perfectly, allowing me to test the basic environments without any trouble.
However, when I go for the full setup along with all dependencies using:
pip install -e '.[all]'
I encounter these build errors:
- Failed to build the Box2D-kengz package
- Failed to build the mujoco-py package
- The atari-py installation errored out with exit code 1
The error messages show a lengthy setuptools command that fails during its execution, indicating trouble with building the optional components.
My current pip version is 9.0.1. Has anyone else experienced similar issues when trying to install all components of Gym? Any advice on how to resolve these dependency problems would be greatly appreciated.
had this exact headache last month! your pip version’s ancient - that’s what’s causing most of these issues. upgrading to the latest pip fixed box2d for me, but mujoco still gave me trouble. i ended up skipping the full install and just added packages as i needed them. works fine for most projects anyway.
Your pip 9.0.1 is outdated, which is likely leading to these build failures. I encountered similar issues while setting up Gym last year. Newer versions of pip, particularly 21 or above, manage complex dependencies more effectively, so I advise upgrading your pip. Additionally, make sure you have Visual Studio Build Tools 2019 or later installed, as older versions can cause compatibility issues with Python on Windows. I switched to Anaconda and utilized conda-forge for the more complex packages instead of relying solely on pip, which significantly improved my installation experience. The atari-py error often resolves itself once the build environment is properly configured.
Windows and Gym dependencies are a nightmare, especially if you’re going for the full install. Windows doesn’t have the native build tools these packages expect, which is where all the headaches start. I fought with these same errors for days until I tried Anaconda - it fixed most of my problems since it comes with pre-compiled binaries for troublemakers like Box2D-kengz. Yeah, update your pip, but honestly even newer versions still choke on these scientific computing packages. Try conda install for the heavy stuff first, then use pip only for whatever you can’t find on conda-forge. This mixed approach saved me tons of time debugging build failures.