`ipython` tab autocomplete does not work on imported module

Tab completion on IPython seems not to be working. For example,

import numpy
numpy.<tab>

simply adds a tab.

import numpy
num<tab>

just adds a tab, too. Could you please suggest some possible causes for this problem? I am running Windows 7 and Python 2.6.5.

Be sure you have installed the pyreadline library. It is needed for tab completion and other IPython functions - in Windows it doesn't come with the IPython package and you have to install it separately -

> pip install pyreadline

In case anyone is using the recent 7.19.0 and autocomplete does not work, try downgrading jedi to 0.17.2:

pip install jedi==0.17.2

See https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/12740 for details.

pip uninstall jedi --yes

and

pip install pyreadline

The current Ipython with the Jupyter notebook doesn't require jedi.. So you have to just uninstall it with the above command.

I got it from here.

pip told me I had pyreadline version 1.7.1 installed

C:\Users\me>pip freeze | grep readline
pyreadline==1.7.1

Upgrading pyreadline fixed it for me:

C:\Users\me>pip install --upgrade pyreadline

C:\Users\me>pip freeze | grep readline
pyreadline==2.0

Your ipythonrc file may be out of date. Try running

ipython -upgrade

Downgrading iPython did the trick.

pip install --upgrade ipython==5.8.0

I had this problem. I solved by downgrade the python-parso package

downgrading the python-parso package (0.8.0-1 => 0.6.2-1)

This should definitely work as it worked in my case

conda install ipython  
pip install jedi==0.17.2

The classic 'have you tried turning it off and on again' worked for me.

pip uninstall ipython
pip install ipython

As of right now, on a OSX, pip installed ipython doesn't give tab completion, pyreadline release.py is busted .. what WFM:

easy_install ipython readline

YMMV.

Someone else in StackOverflow posted this link: http://www.vankouteren.eu/blog/2009/06/getting-ipython-readline-and-auto-completion-to-work-on-mac-os-x/

Its basicly easy_install readline than discover where the readline egg got installed and edit the ipython bin script to use this readline:

1. Install the "official" readline: easy_install readline
2. Discover where it is. Look at /Library/Python/site-packages/readline-*.egg or in your Virtualenv counterpart
3. Discover where ipython bin is: which ipython
4. Add ONE LINE to this file, adding the readline egg path right after import sys line.

My virtualenved ipython bin script got working as follow:

#!/Users/alanjds/src/git/cervejeiras/venv/cervejeiras-lfs/bin/python
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'ipython==0.13.1','console_scripts','ipython'
__requires__ = 'ipython==0.13.1'
import sys

### ONLY LINE ADDED:
sys.path.insert(0, '/Users/alanjds/src/git/cervejeiras/venv/cervejeiras-lfs/lib/python2.6/site-packages/readline-6.2.4.1-py2.6-macosx-10.6-fat.egg')
####

from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('ipython==0.13.1', 'console_scripts', 'ipython')()
    )

I realize this is a really old question, but none of the answers above worked for me (And this is the first hit you get when you google a question of this nature).

I should mention that this is NOT exclusive to windows, I had the problem running CentOS 6.5 and Python 2.7

Here is what I did:

apt-get/yum install ncurses-devel
#If you want history in iPython:
apt-get/yum install sqlite-devel
easy_install ipython readline
ipython

In [1]: from 
Display all 391 possibilities? (y or n)

If you don't have the -devel packages, your install will fail when it comes time to link them and build the eggs.. Hope this helps others!

I had this problem and knew that I had the pip installed for the module I was looking for. Performing $ ipython --init solved the problem for me.

I had to mv ~/.ipython{,.bak} in my case.

If you use Jupyter notebook and you still did get Tab auto-complete working after you tried all the steps suggested in the post here, you might want to check if you are trying to use the Tab auto-completion within a function definition. Ifyour import statements are part of the function such as below, you will not get the Tab auto-completion. You need to put the import statements outside the function and also execute them once before asking for auto-completion on the packages.

def myfunction():
    import pandas as pd
    import numpy as np

    a = pd.DataFrame(np.random.normal(1,3, (4,4))
    return a

I faced the same problem with the numpy library. The issue is with the particular version of ipython or jupyter notebook and it is resolved by simply updating ipython or jupyter. If you are using a conda environment like anaconda or miniconda then update ipython in that environment by using

conda update ipython

In case of anaconda you also need to update the qtconsole

conda update qtconsole

Sometimes anaconda constraints the update of ipython then try

conda update -all

If you are not using a environment then directly update using pip

pip update ipython

I solved my issue by installing jedi-language-server:

pip install -U jedi-language-server

PS, I was installed Ipython from Conda in a virtual env and used the above command when the env was activated.

To check if ipython and the modules it uses match, run pip check ipython.
For my configuration with ipython 7.25 in July 2021, this gave a good clear warning:

ipykernel 6.0.1 has requirement importlib-metadata<4; python_version < "3.8.0", but you have importlib-metadata 4.6.0.

You may of course see different warnings -- this is just an example, unrelated to tab completion.

Then to downgrade it, e.g. pip install 'importlib-metadata<4' # don't forget the 'quotes'

Successfully uninstalled importlib-metadata-4.6.0
Successfully installed importlib-metadata-3.10.1

• pip list -- everything in your $PYTHONPATH, with version and location
• pip check -- everything
• pip show ipython --

Requires: traitlets, pygments, jedi, decorator, pickleshare, pexpect, appnope, matplotlib-inline, setuptools, prompt-toolkit, backcall

but to see the required versions you have to look at .../site-packages/ipython-*.dist-info/METADATA

Pyreadline is needed by ipython. Install pyreadline. This was done in Windows 7. Get pyreadline zip, pyreadline-master.zip, unzip. In powershell change directory into uzipped pyreadline, make sure python is set in Path, and enter commandpython setup.py install This will intall pyreadline in C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages