diff --git a/lib/manager/pip_setup/extract.js b/lib/manager/pip_setup/extract.js
index cab033279550ce902062693cc9d5d3ff7839b4e3..f04275303015cb7d2afa2952932563ee37f8247b 100644
--- a/lib/manager/pip_setup/extract.js
+++ b/lib/manager/pip_setup/extract.js
@@ -52,6 +52,17 @@ async function extractSetupFile(content, packageFile, config) {
       timeout: 5000,
     }));
   } catch (err) {
+    // istanbul ignore if
+    if (
+      err.message &&
+      err.message.includes('No such file or directory') &&
+      !config.gitFs
+    ) {
+      logger.debug({ err }, 'setup.py extraction error');
+      throw new Error(
+        'File not found error when extracting setup.py. Ask your Renovate administrator to enable gitFs and try again'
+      );
+    }
     logger.warn({ err }, 'Error extracting setup.py');
     throw err;
   }