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As the error states, a frequent cause is that you have an old version of rosinstall in /usr/local/lib, as well as a newer version somewhere.

Another source is when you have updated rosinstall, but not vcstools.

So first try to update rosinstall and vcstools:

$ sudo apt-get update python-rosinstall python-vcstools

If that works, all is well. Else on Ubuntu, you can do

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosinstall*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/vcstools*

If you never had them installed via apt-get, do so:

$ sudo apt-get install python-rosinstall python-vcstools

As the error states, a frequent cause is that you have an old version of rosinstall in /usr/local/lib, as well as a newer version somewhere.

Another source is when you have updated rosinstall, but not vcstools.

So first try to update rosinstall and vcstools:

$ sudo apt-get update python-rosinstall python-vcstools

If that works, all is well. Else on Ubuntu, you can do

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosinstall*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/vcstools*

If you never had them installed via apt-get, do so:

$ sudo apt-get install python-rosinstall python-vcstools

As the error states, a frequent cause is that you have an old version of rosinstall in /usr/local/lib, as well as a newer version somewhere.

Another source is when you have updated rosinstall, but not vcstools.

So first try to update rosinstall and vcstools:

$ sudo apt-get update python-rosinstall python-vcstools

If that works, all is well. Else on Ubuntu, you can do

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosinstall*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/vcstools*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/rosws /usr/local/bin/roslocate /usr/local/bin/rosinstall /usr/local/bin/rosco

If you never had them installed via apt-get, do so:

$ sudo apt-get install python-rosinstall python-vcstools

EDIT: Please comment on my question what caused this for you if you find out, it can help us improve the support.

As the error states, a frequent cause is that you have an old version of rosinstall in /usr/local/lib, as well as a newer version somewhere.

Another source is when you have updated rosinstall, but not vcstools.

So first try to update rosinstall and vcstools:

$ sudo apt-get update python-rosinstall python-vcstools

If that works, all is well. Else on Ubuntu, you can do

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosinstall*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/vcstools*
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/rosws /usr/local/bin/roslocate /usr/local/bin/rosinstall /usr/local/bin/rosco

This might be "python2.6" instead of "python2.7" on some systems.

If you never had them installed via apt-get, do so:

$ sudo apt-get install python-rosinstall python-vcstools

EDIT: Please comment on my question what caused this for you if you find out, it can help us improve the support.