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: `CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED`¶

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)>

UbuntumacOS

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: `Exception: failed to compile yul source`¶

Problem: Running fill fails with tests that contain yul source code on ARM platforms

If you're using x86_64, try to manually run solc-select to install the required version of the solc binary:

uv run solc-select use 0.8.24 --always-install

Otherwise, this can happen when you're using an ARM64 OS but followed the x86-64 installation guide. To resolve the issue you must build solidity from source (avoid 0.8.24 as it might require building z3 from source as well).

Solution: Build solc from source

The following steps have been tested on Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS ARM64:

git clone --branch v0.8.28 --depth 1 https://github.com/ethereum/solidity.git
cd solidity && mkdir build && cd build
sudo apt install build-essential libboost-all-dev z3
cmake ..
make
mv $HOME/Documents/execution-spec-tests/.venv/bin/solc $HOME/Documents/execution-spec-tests/.venv/bin/solc-x86-64
cp ./solc/solc $HOME/Documents/execution-spec-tests/.venv/bin/
chmod +x $HOME/Documents/execution-spec-tests/.venv/bin/solc

Running uv run solc --version should now return the expected version. Verify that fill works by running uv run fill -m yul_test in the execution-spec-tests root folder.

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:

The command that triggered the issue.
Any relevant error messages or screenshots.
Relevant version information from the output of uv run eest info (if running consume from within eest).

Installation Troubleshooting¶

Problem: Failed building wheel for coincurve¶

Problem: solc Installation issues¶

Problem: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED¶

Problem: Exception: failed to compile yul source¶

Problem: ValueError: unsupported hash type ripemd160¶