diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 45a75bf6e9..f5a7263f62 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-dist: trusty
+dist: xenial
 language: python
 python:
   - "2.7"
diff --git a/tensorboard/pip_package/build_pip_package.sh b/tensorboard/pip_package/build_pip_package.sh
index 531abbec65..d6feb4eefd 100755
--- a/tensorboard/pip_package/build_pip_package.sh
+++ b/tensorboard/pip_package/build_pip_package.sh
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ build() (
       s/from tensorflow_serving/from tensorboard._vendor.tensorflow_serving/
     ' {} +
 
-  virtualenv -q venv
+  virtualenv -q --always-copy venv
   export VIRTUAL_ENV=venv
   export PATH="${PWD}/venv/bin:${PATH}"
   unset PYTHON_HOME
diff --git a/tensorboard/plugins/example/smoke_test.sh b/tensorboard/plugins/example/smoke_test.sh
index 975a6e1994..c274bdd632 100755
--- a/tensorboard/plugins/example/smoke_test.sh
+++ b/tensorboard/plugins/example/smoke_test.sh
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ tar xzvf \
     "${TEST_SRCDIR}/org_tensorflow_tensorboard/tensorboard/pip_package/pip_packages.tar.gz" \
     -C ./tensorboard-wheels/
 
-virtualenv venv
+virtualenv --always-copy venv
 export VIRTUAL_ENV=venv
 export PATH="${PWD}/venv/bin:${PATH}"
 unset PYTHON_HOME
@@ -50,6 +50,9 @@ pip uninstall -y tensorboard tb-nightly  # drop conflicting packages
 pip install ./tensorboard-wheels/*py"${py_major_version}"*.whl
 pip install ./example-plugin/dist/*.whl
 
+if ! python -c 'print(list(__import__("pkg_resources").iter_entry_points("tensorboard_plugins")))'; then echo $?; fi
+if ! python -c 'print(__import__("tensorboard_plugin_example"))'; then echo $?; fi
+
 python -m tensorboard_plugin_example.demo
 
 # Test tensorboard + tensorboard_plugin_example integration.