Cannot debug Python skill locally due to missing site.getsitepackges() in virtualenvs about ask-toolkit-for-vscode

[nikhilym]

Hey @joerg86 , thanks for reporting this issue. Looks like virtualenv has problems figuring out site packages in Linux environments, since the same code works fine in virtual envs in Mac/Windows. Anyways, as mentioned in the underlying issue that you tagged, we definitely need a better way to check if the local debug package is installed in the python interpreter selected.

Since this is related to virtualenv issues, to get unblocked, can you install the ask-sdk-local-debug package to the global site-packages location and change the interpreter to use that instead?

[joerg86]

Hi @nikhilym , thanks for the super fast response. Yes, installing ask-sdk-local-debug and switching to the global interpreter fixes the issue. However, this would then force me to install all my skill's python requirements globally which is really problematic (version conflicts etc.).

Anyway, good news: I have solved the problem.
It seems like the virtualenv (from python3-virtualenv deb package) shipped with Ubuntu 18.04 is outdated and the problem is solved in newer versions. After doing a sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv followed by deleting and rebuilding my virtualenv everything works fine (virtualenv version 20.0.30).

Sorry for bothering you with that! Anyway, we now have a documented solution - just in case anybody else runs into this problem.

Thanks,
Jörg

[nikhilym]

Oh wow, thanks for the update @joerg86 . This should definitely be added in your FAQs then. I was about to do more research on this, but glad that you figured this out.

Closing this ticket at the moment. Please let us know if you face any problems with the extension or your general feedback about it 😄