Fixing CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED error on Macs with Python3

There's this annoying thing where Requests, a very popular Python library for working the internet doesn't work because of SSL certificates not being trusted.

This whole thing apparently is caused by OSX and Python3 having no certificates and can't validate SSL connections! This information is sort of hidden away in this itty bitty readme file on the certifi module which then pointed me to the readme file in python3. What. The. Fuck.

There, you'll know that for Python 3.6 on OSX, it requires a post-install step, which installs the certifi package of certificates. This is documented in the ReadMe, which you should find at /Applications/Python\ 3.6/ReadMe.rtf

The ReadMe will have you run this post-install script, which just installs certifi: 

/Applications/Python\ 3.6/Install\ Certificates.command

I should read the release notes for Python3 more closely.  

Dealing with outdated or abandoned pypi modules with VCS install

So I was using a small, simple but working Paypal module which unfortunately was forgotten or abandon by the original author. It was working on my Django 1.5 site up until I needed to upgrade to Django 1.10 because of the other modules. Also for security and stability reasons but that's another story for another time.

Fortunately, this Paypal module wasn't "super" broken. The errors were just a couple of lines in the templates and a function named patterns() from django.url.conf - urls.py.

This leads into a couple of solutions:

1. I could copy-pasta the code and turn it into a internal django app with the fixes.

2. I could fork it, fix and then setup by own pypi server.

3. I could find out if someone fixed this already and take it from there.

Of course, I'd pick #3 - Programmer. So, lazy. Look it up.

I was lucky to found out that someone has fixed all the issues and got it running on Django 1.10. All that's left is to fork his repo and install it into my virtual environment.

It's simple because pip already supports installing modules from a VCS.

$ pip install git+https://github.com/killertilapia/fixed-forked-project

If you need install a certain branch do this instead

$ pip install git+https://github.com/killertilapia/fixed-forked-project@branch

This also works with other VCS like Mercurial (hg+https), Bazaar (bzr+https) or for-fuck-sakes why! - SVN (svn+https).

Windows Python 3.6, VS2017 and the case of the missing basetsd.h

So you decided to join the Python 3 bandwagon on Windows with your new shiny Visual Studio. And then you start work on a fresh virtual environment and then you do a pip install or something. Sometimes, you'll end up with a compile error just like this:

WTF is this missing 'basetsd.h' file

You'll google this and end up with one of many stackoverflow topics stating you must install Visual Studio 2015 or some SDK.

Fuck that and save your time. You can do better because a programmer named Dimitri Janczak found a solution that works and I can confirm it works. 

The solution is as follows:

1. Install or update setuptools (> 34.0). Do note that setuptools is sort of tied with your version of Pip. So you might have to do: python -m pip install -U pip setuptools

2. The next step is to pick the correct command-line environment. What?! I know right, Visual Studio comes with multiple command prompts. 

Select the appropriate Native Tools Command prompt. Navigate to the project folder. Activate the virtual environment and do what you did last before you encountered the compile error.

If you goes to plan then you should get a successful result.