Jason R. Coombs added the comment: I've just encountered what appears to be a different manifestation of the same issue. I unlinked the .tox directory and that rendered importlib broken.
$ pwd /Users/jaraco/yg/queso $ rm -R .tox $ python Python 3.6.0rc1 (v3.6.0rc1:29a273eee9a5, Dec 6 2016, 16:24:13) [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> ^D $ python -m tox Could not import runpy module Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/runpy.py", line 15, in <module> import importlib.util ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'importlib.util' $ ls /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/importlib __init__.py __pycache__ _bootstrap.py _bootstrap_external.py abc.py machinery.py Although I'm not certain that another process wasn't involved, I'm confident that it was the removal of the .tox directory (and interaction with Dropbox) that caused the corruption. ---------- title: Unable to launch Python interpreter -> Stdlib modules disappear from file system _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue28949> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com