"ssl module in Python is not available" when installing package with pip3

First aid: Reinstall

Specific SSL dependencies

Ensure the right versions of libcrypto and libssl DLLs, especially for Windows:

pip3 install --upgrade libssl


System specialties

On macOS, switch OpenSSL version using brew switch openssl in case of issues. For Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libffi-dev


Conflict cleansing

Check for and rename any conflicting DLL versions in Windows\System32 to give way to SSL.

Advancing: Build Python with SSL

Building Python

Download the Python source code and configure the build process to include SSL:

./configure --with-ensurepip=install --with-ssl
make
make test
sudo make install


Installation location

Install Python in /usr/local/bin on Unix systems to avoid conflicts.

Post-install validation

Test the pip3 and ssl module with import ssl in Python to verify functionality.

Deep-Dive: Advanced SSL handling

Custom Python-SSL builds

Advanced SSL in Python requires the SSL libraries to be linked to Python:

LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include" ./configure --with-openssl=/usr/local/opt/openssl


# Proper SSL module is like choosing the right wand in Harry Potter


SSL "module not found"

Post-update SSL errors can be solved by a pip3 and Python quick-fix:

python3 -m ensurepip --upgrade
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip


Version Matchmaking

Make sure to match the OpenSSL version with your Python installation to avoid a sour date.