> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ghost.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Cannot find module 'sqlite3'

> Ghost local missing sqlite module due to Python & setuptools being needed for build

***

### Error

If you see either of these errors when using Ghost-CLI:

```
Python is required for SQLite3
```

or

```
Python setuptools is required for SQLite3 when using Python 3.12+
```

Then either python3 or setuptools are missing from your machine. Follow the instructions above to get them installed.

### To fix

Starting with Node.js v22, there are no longer pre-built binaries to download for the sqlite3 module. To successfully build a binary for Node 22 you'll need to have python 3 and setuptools installed.

Ensure these tools are available by following the instructions below for your machine:

* MacOS users with Brew: `brew install python-setuptools` - will install python3 + setuptools
* MacOS users with Python installed locally: `python3 -m pip install setuptools` - will install setuptools
* Ubuntu users: `apt install python3-setuptools` - will install python3 + setuptools
* Windows users: run `winget search Python.Python.3` to find available versions, then `winget install Python.Python.3.x` (replace x with the minor version, e.g. `Python.Python.3.12`) to install python3;
  then `pip install setuptools` will install setuptools

### Cannot find module 'sqlite3'

You may also see error messages like:

```
Message: Ghost was able to start, but errored during boot with: Knex: run
$ npm install sqlite3 --save
Cannot find module 'sqlite3'
```

If you're trying to use Ghost with sqlite3 without using Ghost-CLI. The same fixes above apply.

### Cannot install packages setuptools

You may also see error message on Windows while installing setuptools like:

```
ERROR: Could not install packages due to an OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 
'C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local\\Packages\\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.13_qbz5n2kfra8p0\\LocalCache\\local-packages\\Python313\\site-packages\\pkg_resources\\tests\\data\\my-test-package_unpacked-egg\\my_test_package-1.0-py3.7.egg\\EGG-INFO\\dependency_links.txt'
```

This is because the Windows API maximum length for a path is 260 characters. To overwrite the behaviour, change the [registry setting to enable long paths](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=powershell#registry-setting-to-enable-long-paths).