Getting "Could not find function xmlCheckVersion in library libxml2. Is libxml2 installed?" when installing lxml through pip

Question

I'm getting an error Could not find function xmlCheckVersion in library libxml2. Is libxml2 installed? when trying to install lxml through pip.

  c:\users\f\appdata\local\temp\xmlXPathInitqjzysz.c(1) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'libxml/xpath.h': No such file or directory
  *********************************************************************************
  Could not find function xmlCheckVersion in library libxml2. Is libxml2 installed?
  *********************************************************************************
  error: command 'C:\\Users\\f\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Common\\Microsoft\\Visual C++ for Python\\9.0\\VC\\Bin\\cl.exe' failed with exit status 2

I don't find any libxml2 dev packages to install via pip.

Using Python 2.7 and Python 3.x on x86 in a virtualenv under Windows 10.

Slightly

Answer 1

Install lxml from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#lxml for your python version. It's a precompiled WHL with required modules/dependencies.

The site lists several packages, when e.g. using Win32 Python 3.11, use lxml‑4.9.0‑cp311‑cp311‑win32.whl.

Download the file, and then install with:

pip install C:\path\to\downloaded\file\lxml‑4.9.0‑cp311‑cp311‑win32.whl

Slightly

a not for people having the same problem: 3.4.4. will result in the same error. only version 3.5.0 has gotten me rid of it – Hierogram

@Hierogram - yum install libxml2-devel libxslt-devel did this for me. #26885014 – Blinny

You can also install with this more generic command: pip install --use-wheel --find-links=C:\path\to\folder\with\wheel lxml – Polyandry

Perfectly installed under Python 2.7 and W10. – Prowler

you should switch to linux – Moriah

I have solved my problem installing libxml2-dev and libxslt-dev in Fedora – Coronary

Great help. Another small thing I needed to do: It failed to install on my virtual env (wheel not supported). Eventually I've installed it on my regular python (c:\program files x86...) and copied the python27\lib\site-packages\lxml* folders to the virtual env. – Bentinck

gave me lxml... is not a supported wheel on this platform. – Breana

@Inspi, match it with Python version installed. For Python version 3.11 it is -cp311-. – Schram

@Inspi: ensure you're using the right Python version and ensure you're using the right platform (Win32 <-> 64). Also this can be caused by an outdated PIP, so do a python -m pip install --upgrade pip. – Slightly

Excellent. I used amd64 version, and it worked on Windows 10 machine Thank you. – Whitford

It seems like lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs is no longer updated. It says "Archived". – Obstetrician

This page sadly no longer exist. – Raffle

Answer 2

I had this issue and realised that whilst I did have libxml2 installed, I didn't have the necessary development libraries required by the python package. Installing them solved the problem:

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev
sudo pip install lxml

Biradial

Please read through the OPs content. He is doing this on a Windows machine! – Gasify

Correct solution for linux when using pip – Navigation

Fedora 23: dnf install libxml2-devel and dnf install libxslt-devel – Historicity

@Gasify Installing the same packages with the Cygwin installer solves the problem for me on Windows 10. – Vaunt

Centos 7: sudo yum install libxml2-devel libxslt-devel (required for python-docx module) – Syncarpous

Answer 3

Try to use:
easy_install lxml
That works for me, win10, python 2.7.

Anastasius

it throws the same error when using easy install command for lxml – Suzisuzie

Used to work for me, but now with a new lxml version this no longer works. – Slightly

Answer 4

On Mac OS X El Capitan I had to run these two commands to fix this error:

xcode-select --install
pip install lxml

Which ended up installing lxml-3.5.0

When you run the xcode-select command you may have to sign a EULA (so have an X-Term handy for the UI if you're doing this on a headless machine).

Pegeen

Yup, that do the trick for me in OS X El Capitan. In fact, if you scrolls up the screen to see the root cause of the error, there is a line there says "Perhaps try: xcode-select --install" – Amersham

This fixed it, and there is a line that does suggest this as commented above! – Fluent

Does anyone else feel like they've run xcode-select --install before, though? Is there any introspection on what this does either a first or second time? As a note, though I did not have to install lxml globally for it to work in a virtual environment, so at least there is that. – Speed

Answer 5

In case anyone else has the same issue as this on

Centos, try:

yum install python-lxml

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install -y python-lxml

worked for me.

Executor

Answer 6

set STATICBUILD=true && pip install lxml

run this command instead, must have VS C++ compiler installed first

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/04/11/unable-to-find-vcvarsall-bat/

It works for me with Python 3.5.2 and Windows 7

Marmite

i have vc2017 installation, trying your answer. – Sandysandye

Answer 7

I tried install a lib that depends lxml and nothing works. I see a message when build was started: "Building without Cython", so after install cython with apt-get install cython, lxml was installed.

Acclimate

Answer 8

I had this issue and realized that while I did have libxml2 installed, I didn't have the necessary development libraries required by the python package.

1) Installing them solved the problem:

The site to download the file: Download

2) After Installing the file save it in a accessible folder

pip install *path to that file*

Halfpint

That doesn't seem to include more than the accepted answer. – Spent

Answer 9

For some reason it doesn't work in python 3.11, but 3.10 works.

On windows, to install a module with a previous version, use

py -3.10 -m pip install lxml

if you want to install it in a venv, then use

py -3.10 -m venv .venv
.venv/Scripts/pip.exe install lxml

if you've set up the venv, then you can just use

pip install lxml

You also need to run the python program with that version. If you set up a venv, then you don't need to do this.

py -3.10 file.py

Secular

py -3.10 -m pip install lxml gave me the exact same error – Breana

Are you using python 32-bit or 64-bit? – Secular

Answer 10

It is not strange for me that none of the solutions above came up, but I saw how the igd installation removed the new version and installed the old one, for the solution I downloaded this archive:https://pypi.org/project/igd/#files

and changed the recommended version of the new version: 'lxml==4.3.0' in setup.py It works!

Autotomize

Answer 11

I got the same error for python 32 bit. After install 64bit, the problem was fixed.

Gettings

Answer 12

On MacOS Big Sur, I ran xcode-select --install as suggested, installed XCode, restarted the Mac, and was still getting the same error when installing lxml.

What helped was to reset the XCode path:

sudo xcode-select --reset

After that, lxml installed successfully.

Ordinal

why would you give a Mac answer to an almost 8 year old Windows question? very confused.. – Paramagnetic

@AndreGreeff I just had the same problem myself, and I'm on Mac, so I spent some time researching it and wanted to share my answer for people having the same problem. I know that the question is about Windows, but I see other non-Windows answers, so I thought mine can be helpful as well. – Ordinal

fair enough.. in hindsight, I guess this also helps to show future visitors that there was "more recent" activity on the issue. – Paramagnetic

Answer 13

Download the compiled WHL provided on GitHub project release page https://github.com/lxml/lxml/releases

Them install using the pip command

python -m pip install --upgrade path/to/lxml.whl

Leuko

Answer 14

When I worked on the python:3.9-alpine Docker image, I used this build process to install the build dependencies while compiling for several architectures. The lxml package is in the requirements.txt file.

RUN apk add libxslt libxml2 libxslt-dev libxml2-dev gcc libc-dev \
 && echo "cython < 4.0" > constraints.txt \
 && export PIP_CONSTRAINT=constraints.txt \
 && pip install --upgrade --no-cache-dir pip \
 && pip install --upgrade --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt \
 && apk del libxslt-dev libxml2-dev gcc libc-dev

source

Note: I am unsure what to uninstall.

Osy

Answer 15

I am using venv.

In my case it was enough to add lxml==4.6.3 to requirements.txt.

One library wanted earlier version and this was causing this error, so when I forced pip to use newest version (currently 4.6.3) installation was successful.

Hardtop