VS Code: Python Interpreter can't find my venv

Question:

I’ve been stuck on this for a few days, kindly help me if you can.

I have my venv folder on my root project folder. When I try to set the Python Interpreter, it shows me only the Python installed in my machine and not the one in my root folder.

It was working fine until I formatted my PC and installed windows 10 64 bits. (was running on windows 7 64 bits prior)

Things I have tried:

  • Set the path manually via pythonPath and/or venvPath, in both workspace and user settings: 
    "python.pythonPath": "F:/Web Dev/Python/Django/project_x_v2/backend/venv/Scripts/python.exe",
    "python.venvPath": "F:/Web Dev/Python/Django/project_x_v2/backend/venv/Scripts/python.exe",

enter image description here

It shows me the correct location in the placeholder but I don’t have the option to choose it from the dropdown list:

enter image description here

Any ideas how I can solve this?

Thank you very much.

EDIT:

  • In the image it shows “python”, but I have corrected it to “python.exe” and it still does not work;
  • ~AppData... is located in the disk C: while my venv is located in the disk F:. I am not sure whether that is relevant though;
  • The venv runs fine in the console.
Asked By: Diego Fortes

||
Source

Answers:

Drop the "python.venvPath" setting (it doesn’t do what you seem to think it does), don’t specify these settings in your user settings, and change your "python.pythonPath" to be relative to your project, e.g.:

"python.pythonPath": "venv/Scripts/python.exe"
Answered By: Brett Cannon

The only solution I found was to delete the venv and recreate it. I followed these steps but I’ll provide a brief summary for Windows:

  1. Activate your virtualenv. Go to the parent folder where your Virtual Environment is located and run venvscriptsactivate. Keep in mind that the first name "venv" can vary.
  2. Create a requirements.txt file. pip freeze > requirements.txt
  3. deactivate to exit the venv
  4. rm venv to delete the venv
  5. py -m venv venv to create a new one
  6. pip install -r requirements.txt to install the requirements.
Answered By: Diego Fortes

In my case, it wasn’t sufficient to delete and recreate the venv, to select the venv from within VS Code, or to update the pythonPath to point to the venv. VS Code was still unable to find the venv or discover the unit tests. The issue turned out to be that I had reorganized my project folders so my project was no longer in the same location where I originally created its previous virtual environment. The only solution that worked was to delete the venv, move the project back to the same parent folder it was in before, then create a new venv.

Answered By: Matt

The simple solution which worked for me is as follow:

  1. Open the VS Code Terminal
  2. Navigate (from your project folder) to folder containing the environment and activate as follow:
source your_evn/bin/activate

3.Navigate back to your project folder

Answered By: Vinod Kumar Chauhan

I found a solution for wsl users and maybe it’s happening to some of you.

If you did create the virtual enviroment in wsl mode Windows will never find the python file because there is not .exe in Linux systems, so the way to activate is

cd [folder where you have your venv]

activate folder -> source venv/bin/activate

Once you have your venv activated then open vs code

code .

And you will have the enviroment activated.

Answered By: villa121

In my case, I had not yet installed virtualenv. You can install it using:

pip install virtualenv
Answered By: sajeyks mwangi