# SyntaxErrors off the bat from a pip install

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [March 28, 2019, 8:45pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681 "2019-03-28T20:45:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tgp1994](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/tgp1994/32/217_2.png) [@tgp1994](https://discourse.beets.io/u/tgp1994)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 8:45pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681/1 "2019-03-28T20:45:53Z")

</div>

I’m excited to get started with Beets, but I’m running an issue right off the bat after installing it. I’m running Ubuntu Server 18.04 bionic with pip and python packages installed. I used pip install beets (both as a standard user and as superuser for troubleshooting) which seemed to go well enough, but running beets or any variation with options results in a crash:

```
> beet

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/beet", line 7, in <module>
    from beets.ui import main
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/beets/ui/ __init__.py", line 42, in <module>
    from beets.autotag import mb
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/beets/autotag/ __init__.py", line 26, in <module>
    from .match import tag_item, tag_album, Proposal # noqa
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/beets/autotag/match.py", line 24, in <module>
    from munkres import Munkres
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/munkres.py", line 79
    def pad_matrix(self, matrix: Matrix, pad_value: int=0) -> Matrix:
                               ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

```

This is after virtually no post-install configuration - I’m just running the command directly after installation. Can anyone offer any insight on this problem?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681/2 "2019-03-28T21:09:10Z")

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This issue (and the ones I linked to there) are about this problem:

> <https://github.com/beetbox/beets/issues/3185>

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tgp1994](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/tgp1994/32/217_2.png) [@tgp1994](https://discourse.beets.io/u/tgp1994)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 9:11pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681/3 "2019-03-28T21:11:58Z")

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Thank you for linking that, I can’t believe none of this showed up while I was searching… Much appreciated!

Edit: I apologize if this is obvious, but regarding the ticket, how do I make beets _use_ Python 3 when I’m running it from command line?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adrian](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/adrian/32/4_2.png) [@adrian](https://discourse.beets.io/u/adrian)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681/4 "2019-03-28T22:44:58Z")

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You’ll want to install it using Python 3, i.e., make sure that `pip` is a Python 3 program (or use `pip3` if that’s available) before you `pip install beets`.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tgp1994](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/tgp1994/32/217_2.png) [@tgp1994](https://discourse.beets.io/u/tgp1994)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:29am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/syntaxerrors-off-the-bat-from-a-pip-install/681/5 "2019-03-29T02:29:43Z")

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That was the ticket, thank you again Adrian!