[Python-Dev] Possible major bug with zipimport on Windows in Python 3.3.4

[Paul Moore]

On 13 February 2014 20:58, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13 February 2014 20:54, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>>
>> On Feb 13, 2014, at 3:53 PM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Can someone please take a look at http://bugs.python.org/issue20621
>>> for me? It appears that there is a significant problem with zipimport
>>> in 3.3.4. It's causing breakage in virtualenv but I've isolated the
>>> issue to what I think is Python itself.
>>>
>>> Basically, until this bug is fixed, virtualenv won't work on Windows
>>> with Python 3.3.4, as far as I can tell.
>>
>> Does it affect 3.4?
>
> Just checked that. No, it's not an issue in 3.4rc0. Nor is it in
> 3.3.3, so it's a regression in the 3.3 series only.

OK, this appears to be a serious regression that breaks virtualenv.
Steve Dower suggested a workaround on the tracker, but I don't think
that can be made to work in the case of virtualenv (for reasons not
worth explaining now, ask me if you want the details though).

Given where we are, what is the way forward here? I'm not entirely
sure what I should be saying to the user who reported the bug in
virtualenv. I think I'll recommend downgrading to 3.3.3 for now, but
it would be good to be able to give an idea of what the longer term
solution is likely to be.

Thanks
Paul