Install Caffe on Mac error: "fatal error: 'cblas.h' file not found"

Question

I've been following this guide to install on my El Capitan macbook pro, using CMake to build the makefile. However, when I attempt to make, I run into the error of missing the cblas.h file. I successfully reinstalled openblas with:

$ brew uninstall openblas; brew install --fresh -vd openblas

and adding the two build flags:

LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/opt/openblas/lib

CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/openblas/include

However I still get the error. Then I reinstalled CUDA and xcode-select install tools as recommended here.

Any recommendations/further speculation about why make doesn't see my cblas.h file is appreciated!

Answer 1

For my Caffe installation, this was my setup:

• MacOS 10.12 Sierra, CPU_ONLY=ON, no CUDA, no Anaconda, with Python interface
• Compilation via Make (instead of Cmake) official instructions here

The directory of my cblas.h file (via Finder search): /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Headers

Add that cblas.h path to ./caffe/Makefile.config:

# Whatever else you find you need goes here.
INCLUDE_DIRS := $(PYTHON_INCLUDE) /usr/local/include /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Headers/
LIBRARY_DIRS := $(PYTHON_LIB) /usr/local/lib /usr/lib

Additional notes

Also for me, I had OpenBlas. Might impact your situation.

# BLAS choice:
# atlas for ATLAS (default)
# mkl for MKL
# open for OpenBlas
BLAS := open

I also modified ./caffe/Makefile with the cblas.h path, but not sure if it was necessary / made a difference.

else ifeq ($(BLAS), open)
    # OpenBLAS
    LIBRARIES += openblas
    BLAS_INCLUDE ?= /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Headers/

Resulting outcome

The original error disappeared:

Tams-MacBook-Pro:caffe tamtam$ make all
CXX src/caffe/blob.cpp
In file included from src/caffe/blob.cpp:7:
In file included from ./include/caffe/util/math_functions.hpp:11:
./include/caffe/util/mkl_alternate.hpp:14:10: fatal error: 'cblas.h' file not found
#include <cblas.h>
         ^
1 error generated.
make: *** [.build_release/src/caffe/blob.o] Error 1

But the next error unraveled was (the tail end of output):

CXX src/caffe/util/upgrade_proto.cpp
AR -o .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_conv_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_lcn_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_lrn_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_pooling_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_relu_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_sigmoid_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_softmax_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn_tanh_layer.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(parallel.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode833.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a(cudnn.o) has no symbols
LD -o .build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0-rc5
clang: warning: argument unused during compilation: '-pthread' [-Wunused-command-line-argument]
ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/lib'
ld: library not found for -lopenblas
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
make: *** [.build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0-rc5] Error 1

Which I fix/resolve/modify via this in Makefile.config:

# Homebrew puts openblas in a directory that is not on the standard search path
BLAS_INCLUDE := $(brew --prefix openblas)/include /usr/local/Cellar/openblas/0.3.3/include
BLAS_LIB := $(brew --prefix openblas)/lib /usr/local/Cellar/openblas/0.3.3/lib

I also resolve the -pthread warning via this in Makefile:

CXXFLAGS += -fPIC $(COMMON_FLAGS) $(WARNINGS) -std=c++11 #rm'd -pthread
LINKFLAGS += -fPIC $(COMMON_FLAGS) $(WARNINGS) -std=c++11 #rm'd -pthread

With another make clean, cp Makefile.config.example Makefile.config, and make all, this is the tail end of the output and similarly the entire gist of the output:

In file included from ./include/caffe/caffe.hpp:12:
./include/caffe/net.hpp:41:5: warning: unused typedef 'INVALID_REQUESTED_LOG_SEVERITY' [-Wunused-local-typedef]
    LOG_EVERY_N(WARNING, 1000) << "DEPRECATED: ForwardPrefilled() "
    ^
/usr/local/include/glog/logging.h:943:30: note: expanded from macro 'LOG_EVERY_N'
                             INVALID_REQUESTED_LOG_SEVERITY);           \
                             ^
1 warning generated.
CXX/LD -o .build_release/examples/cpp_classification/classification.bin
ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/lib'
CXX examples/mnist/convert_mnist_data.cpp
CXX/LD -o .build_release/examples/mnist/convert_mnist_data.bin
ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/lib'
CXX examples/siamese/convert_mnist_siamese_data.cpp
CXX/LD -o .build_release/examples/siamese/convert_mnist_siamese_data.bin
ld: warning: directory not found for option '-L/lib'

So it seems that make all built successfully, assuming that this -L/lib error will not cause further problems down the line. Note: make all, make test, and make runtest run fine with just warnings produced. make pycaffe however produced further errors; I might link to my solutions later. Also, yes this answer is indeed long and beyond what the OP asked, but hopefully my answer might help someone else in this dreadful installation process.

Answer 2

In Makefile.config:

INCLUDE_DIRS := $(PYTHON_INCLUDE) /usr/local/include /usr/local/opt/openblas/include/

LIBRARY_DIRS := $(PYTHON_LIB) /usr/local/lib /usr/lib /usr/local/opt/openblas/lib/

Not sure if it's the most elegant solution, but it works.

Answer 3

Uncomment this lines in Makefile.config:

# Homebrew puts openblas in a directory that is not on the standard search path 
BLAS_INCLUDE := $(shell brew --prefix openblas)/include 
BLAS_LIB := $(shell brew --prefix openblas)/lib

Answer 4

Go to the Makefile.config and edit the following lines with the path where your openblas is located, in my case the version is 0.2.18_2

Be sure to uncomment these lines:

BLAS_INCLUDE := /usr/local/Cellar/openblas/0.2.18_2/include
BLAS_LIB := /usr/local/Cellar/openblas/0.2.18_2/lib

Answer 5

I ran into this issue myself today and submitted a pull request to mainline Caffe:

https://github.com/BVLC/caffe/pull/4247

For me, the issue was that Caffe was finding the deprecated vecLib framework (which doesn't ship cblas.h) instead of the new Accelerate framework (which does ship cblas.h).

Answer 6

In your question I see cmake, but in provided link Makefile.config.

If you're still want to proceed with cmake:

first of all, build script is NOT broken - I tried it on Yosemite with the latest master branch (2016-02-25), but you should slightly adjust it if you already made

brew uninstall openblas; brew install --fresh -vd openblas

Just run your cmake with additional arguments:

cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/openblas/include <path to your sources>

and then usual make or xcode build (depends on what generator you use).

After this it was successfully built on my system.

UPD: you can also use libraries in Accelerate.framework (vecLib) instead of openblas.