"The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg" installing Pillow on Alpine Linux

Question

I'm trying to run Python's Scrapy in a Docker container based on python:alpine. It was working before, but now I'd like to use Scrapy's Image Pipeline which requires me to install Pillow.

As a simplified example, I tried the following Dockerfile:

FROM python:alpine
RUN apk --update add libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libffi-dev gcc musl-dev libgcc openssl-dev curl
RUN apk add libjpeg zlib tiff freetype lcms libwebp tcl openjpeg
RUN pip install Pillow

However, when I try to build this I get an error which contains the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 744, in <module>
    zip_safe=not debug_build(), )
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/core.py", line 148, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 955, in run_commands
    self.run_command(cmd)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/setuptools/command/install.py", line 61, in run
    return orig.install.run(self)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/install.py", line 545, in run
    self.run_command('build')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/cmd.py", line 313, in run_command
    self.distribution.run_command(command)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/build.py", line 135, in run
    self.run_command(cmd_name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/cmd.py", line 313, in run_command
    self.distribution.run_command(command)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/distutils/command/build_ext.py", line 339, in run
    self.build_extensions()
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 545, in build_extensions
    raise RequiredDependencyException(f)
__main__.RequiredDependencyException: jpeg

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/tmp/pip-build-ft5yzzuv/Pillow/setup.py", line 756, in <module>
    raise RequiredDependencyException(msg)
__main__.RequiredDependencyException:

The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg,
a required dependency when compiling Pillow from source.

Please see the install instructions at:
   https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

I went through the requirements on https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html and tried to find the corresponding packages for Alpine, although one I couldn't find was libimagequant, so this might be the 'culprit'. Nonetheless, it the traceback and error message seem to be saying that jpeg is missing, whereas I have installed openjpeg.

How can I modify the Dockerfile so that pip install Pillow runs?

Direful

just add: apk add jpeg-dev – Espadrille

Answer 1

In a comment that appears to have been deleted later, someone pointed me to https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/blob/c05099f45c0d94a2a98c3609a96bdb6cf7446627/depends/alpine_Dockerfile. Based on that Dockerfile I modified my own as follows:

FROM python:alpine
RUN apk --update add libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libffi-dev gcc musl-dev libgcc openssl-dev curl
RUN apk add jpeg-dev zlib-dev freetype-dev lcms2-dev openjpeg-dev tiff-dev tk-dev tcl-dev
RUN pip install Pillow

Now it builds successfully.

Direful

After carefully reading error I noticed part "The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg". Those headers are held in *-dev packages. So I went to pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=libjpeg*&branch=edge and in the end "apk --no-cache --update-cache add libjpeg-turbo-dev zlib-dev" did the trick. – Birthright

apk add jpeg-dev is all that you need to fix the "The headers or library files could not be found for jpeg" issue – Zeralda

I got out with less of linux packages: FROM python:3.7-alpine RUN apk --update add gcc libgcc musl-dev jpeg-dev zlib-dev Builds faster and fetches less of binaries. – Spector

Answer 2

For debian

sudo apt install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev
pip install Pillow

France

apt-get does not exist on Alpine Linux, the package manager is apk. – Serilda

Even in Ubuntu apt is now the preferred package manager for end user askubuntu.com/a/446484 – Penitentiary

I only had to install libjpeg-dev on Ubuntu 20.04 – Aerobic

I used this answer on Raspberry Pi 4b and it worked – Captain

Answer 3

For macOS:

brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2

Reason: https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

Longanimity

This got pillow working for me! Working in Python 3.9 and going through Django 3 by Example Third Edition. – Namangan

if different brew prefix then use arch -arm64 brew install libtiff libjpeg webp little-cms2 – Separatrix

I only needed libjpeg. – Dewain

Answer 4

I ran into this problem with docker image python:3.6-alpine I solved it by adding these packages apk add jpeg-dev zlib-dev.

Soneson

This works for using Pillow with Docker. – Williawilliam

Answer 5

have you seen this QA? Fail during installation of Pillow (Python module) in Linux

they say you have to update your pip and install libjpeg-dev.

Tatouay

They don't mention the alpine based solution: apk add jpeg-dev – Zeralda

sudo dnf install libjpeg-turbo-devel libjpeg-turbo-utils for Fedora 32 – Dermatitis

libjpeg-turbo-devel worked for redhat7 – Digitigrade

Answer 6

Just in case anyone else is still struggling like I was you can see the official alpine Dockerfile for Pillow here: https://github.com/python-pillow/docker-images/blob/master/alpine/Dockerfile#L20

It states the following dependencies:

RUN apk --no-cache add python3 \

                   ...

                   # Pillow dependencies
                   jpeg-dev \
                   zlib-dev \
                   freetype-dev \
                   lcms2-dev \
                   openjpeg-dev \
                   tiff-dev \
                   tk-dev \
                   tcl-dev \
                   harfbuzz-dev \
                   fribidi-dev

Offence

Answer 7

In short, this helps:

RUN apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y build-essential libsqlite3-dev \
  libpng-dev libjpeg-dev

---

Detailed:

I have the same error with python:3.8-slim-buster image. Solution presented by @pierangelo-orizio worked for me, but I just cleaned it to a minimal required packages list. So here is my Dockerfile:

FROM python:3.8-slim-buster

RUN apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y build-essential libsqlite3-dev \
    libpng-dev libjpeg-dev

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

EXPOSE 8000
VOLUME /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
CMD python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

And requirements.txt:

Django>=2.1,<2.2
wagtail>=2.4,<2.5
django-cors-headers==2.5.3
python-dotenv==0.10.3

Eisteddfod

Answer 8

Run into the same issue on python 3.9. Fixed it by bumping pillow version in requirements.txt to Pillow>=8.0. There's a nice matrix of which pillow version supports which python version here.

Moulton

Answer 9

For yum users, this should work:

sudo yum -y install libjpeg-turbo-devel
pip3 install Pillow

Cajolery

Answer 10

If you're missing libjpeg.so package in runtime, try this (alpine linux):

apk add --no-cache jpeg

Mealymouthed

Answer 11

Have you try to create a requirements.txt and insert this in Dockerfile:

    RUN apt-get update -qq && apt-get install build-essential g++ flex bison gperf ruby perl \
  mysql-client \
  libsqlite3-dev libmysqlclient-dev libfontconfig1-dev libicu-dev libfreetype6 libssl-dev \
  libpng-dev libjpeg-dev python libx11-dev libxext-dev -y
 ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1
 RUN mkdir /code
 WORKDIR /code
 ADD requirements.txt /code/
 COPY . /code
 RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
 ADD . /code/

example of requirements.txt

Django==1.9.7
django-appconf==1.0.1
django-filer==1.2.5
django-filter==0.15.0
django-grappelli==2.8.1
django-image-cropping==1.0.3
django-mptt==0.8.6
django-nested-admin==3.0.10
django-nested-inline==0.3.6
django-polymorphic==0.8.1
django-taggit==0.21.2
django-tinymce==2.4.0
dnspython==1.15.0
easy-thumbnails==2.3
enum34==1.1.2
funcsigs==0.4
idna==2.1
ipaddress==1.0.17
mercurial==3.7.3
mock==1.3.0
mysql-python
ndg-httpsclient==0.4.2
parsedatetime==2.1
pbr==1.8.0
Pillow==3.3.1
psutil==3.4.2
pyasn1==0.1.9
PyICU==1.9.2
pyOpenSSL==16.1.0
pyRFC3339==1.0
python-augeas==0.5.0
python-monkey-business==1.0.0
python2-pythondialog==3.3.0
pytz==2014.10
requests==2.11.1
six==1.10.0
Unidecode==0.4.19
urllib3==1.16
zope.component==4.2.2
zope.event==4.2.0
zope.hookable==4.0.4
zope.interface==4.1.3

Technician

I suppose there are many excess packages (114Mb!) but it worked for me, thanks! – Eisteddfod

Answer 12

Just adding "RUN apk add jpeg-dev" to Dockerfile fixed the problem for me.

Andel

Answer 13

For macOS users, just run:

brew install libjpeg libtiff little-cms2 openjpeg webp

Psychomancy