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Installation Troubleshooting

This page provides guidance on how to troubleshoot common issues that may arise when installing ethereum/execution-spec-tests.

Problem: Failed building wheel for coincurve

Problem: Failed building wheel for coincurve

Installing EEST and its dependencies via uv sync --all-extras fails with:

Stored in directory: /tmp/...
  Building wheel for coincurve (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Building wheel for coincurve (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [27 lines of output]
      ...
        571 | #include <secp256k1_extrakeys.h>
            |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      compilation terminated.
      error: command '/usr/bin/gcc' failed with exit code 1
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for coincurve

Solution: Install the libsecp256k1 library

On Ubuntu, you can install this library with:

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install libsecp256k1-dev

Problem: solc Installation issues

Problem: Failed to install solc ... CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

When running either uv run solc-select use 0.8.24 --always-install or fill you encounter the following error:

Exit: Failed to install solc version 0.8.24: <urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:992)>

Solution: Update your system’s CA certificates

On Ubuntu, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates

Solution: Update your system’s CA certificates

On macOS, Python provides a built-in script to install the required certificates:

/Applications/Python\ 3.11/Install\ Certificates.command

Problem: ValueError: unsupported hash type ripemd160

Problem: Running fill fails with tests that use the RIPEMD160 precompile (0x03)

When running fill, you encounter the following error:

ValueError: unsupported hash type ripemd160
# or
ValueError: [digital envelope routines] unsupported

This is due to the removal of certain cryptographic primitives in OpenSSL 3. These were re-introduced in OpenSSL v3.0.7.

Solution: Modify OpenSSL configuration

On platforms where OpenSSL v3.0.7 is unavailable (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04), modify your OpenSSL configuration to enable RIPEMD160. Make the following changes in the OpenSSL config file:

[openssl_init]
providers = provider_sect

# List of providers to load
[provider_sect]
default = default_sect
legacy = legacy_sect

[default_sect]
activate = 1

[legacy_sect]
activate = 1

This will enable the legacy cryptographic algorithms, including RIPEMD160. See ethereum/execution-specs#506 for more information.

Other Issues Not Listed?

If you're facing an issue that's not listed here, you can easily report it on GitHub for resolution.

Click here to report a documentation issue related to installation

Please include the following details in your report:

  1. The command that triggered the issue.
  2. Any relevant error messages or screenshots.