python - NLTK download SSL: Certificate verify failed

Question

I get the following error when trying to install Punkt for nltk:

nltk.download('punkt')    
 [nltk_data] Error loading Punkt: <urlopen error [SSL:
 [nltk_data]     CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed
 [nltk_data]     (_ssl.c:590)>
False

Answer 1

TLDR: Here is a better solution: https://github.com/gunthercox/ChatterBot/issues/930#issuecomment-322111087

Note that when you run nltk.download(), a window will pop up and let you select which packages to download (Download is not automatically started right away).

To complement the accepted answer, the following is a complete list of directories that will be searched on Mac (not limited to the one mentioned in the accepted answer): - '/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/nltk_data' - '/usr/share/nltk_data' - '/usr/local/share/nltk_data' - '/usr/lib/nltk_data' - '/usr/local/lib/nltk_data' - '/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_VIRTUAL_ENV_DIRECTORY/nltk_data' - '/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_VIRTUAL_ENV_DIRECTORY/share/nltk_data' - '/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_VIRTUAL_ENV_DIRECTORY/lib/nltk_data'

In case the link above dies, here is the solution pasted in its entirety:

import nltk
import ssl

try:
    _create_unverified_https_context = ssl._create_unverified_context
except AttributeError:
    pass
else:
    ssl._create_default_https_context = _create_unverified_https_context

nltk.download()

Run the above code in your favourite Python IDE or via the command line.