ubuntu-latest not able to install lxml 4.9.1

[quantum-commit]

Description

When trying to install lxml via requirements.txt in ubuntu-latest throws an error

Using step -

      # Install requirements.txt
      - name: Install requirements.txt
        run: |
          ls -l
          node --version
          python --version
          pip --version
          python3 -m pip install -r "./requirements.txt"

Result

Collecting lxml==4.9.1 (from -r ./requirements.txt (line 10))
  Downloading lxml-4.9.1.tar.gz (3.4 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 3.4/3.4 MB 106.4 MB/s eta 0:00:00
  Preparing metadata (setup.py): started
  Preparing metadata (setup.py): finished with status 'error'
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error
  
  × python setup.py egg_info did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [7 lines of output]
      /tmp/pip-install-q2qqyahd/lxml_eac12c04c32d40b09b293af6401a040e/setup.py:114: SyntaxWarning: invalid escape sequence '\.'
        is_interesting_header = re.compile('^(zconf|zlib|.*charset)\.h$').match
      /tmp/pip-install-q2qqyahd/lxml_eac12c04c32d40b09b293af6401a040e/setup.py:67: DeprecationWarning: pkg_resources is deprecated as an API. See https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/pkg_resources.html
        import pkg_resources
      Building lxml version 4.9.1.
      Building without Cython.
      Error: Please make sure the libxml2 and libxslt development packages are installed.
      [end of output]
  
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: metadata-generation-failed
× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.
note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/ubuntu24%2F20250113.1

Is it regression?

No

Expected behavior

lxml should get installed successfully.

Actual behavior

Throwing an error as below

Collecting lxml==4.9.1 (from -r ./requirements.txt (line 10))
  Downloading lxml-4.9.1.tar.gz (3.4 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 3.4/3.4 MB 106.4 MB/s eta 0:00:00
  Preparing metadata (setup.py): started
  Preparing metadata (setup.py): finished with status 'error'
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error
  
  × python setup.py egg_info did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [7 lines of output]
      /tmp/pip-install-q2qqyahd/lxml_eac12c04c32d40b09b293af6401a040e/setup.py:114: SyntaxWarning: invalid escape sequence '\.'
        is_interesting_header = re.compile('^(zconf|zlib|.*charset)\.h$').match
      /tmp/pip-install-q2qqyahd/lxml_eac12c04c32d40b09b293af6401a040e/setup.py:67: DeprecationWarning: pkg_resources is deprecated as an API. See https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/pkg_resources.html
        import pkg_resources
      Building lxml version 4.9.1.
      Building without Cython.
      Error: Please make sure the libxml2 and libxslt development packages are installed.
      [end of output]
  
  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: metadata-generation-failed
× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.
note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

Repro steps

1. Create requirements.txt with -

lxml==4.9.1

2. In Actions workflow try to install

      # Install requirements.txt
      - name: Install requirements.txt
        run: |
          ls -l
          node --version
          python --version
          pip --version
          python3 -m pip install -r "./requirements.txt"

[RaviAkshintala]

Hi @quantum-commit Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into this issue closely and will update you after investigating.