Commonly encountered build issues

This page attempts to collect a list of commonly encountered build issues and provide solutions to them. Since it is mostly community-maintained, it is by far not comprehensive - you're encouraged to make edits, adding new answers and correcting mistakes. Links to existing answers (e.g. on caffe-users or StackOverflow) are welcome!

1) HDF5 issues:

Problem:

src/caffe/net.cpp:8:18: fatal error: hdf5.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Makefile:581: recipe for target '.build_release/src/caffe/net.o' failed
make: *** [.build_release/src/caffe/net.o] Error 1

or

AR -o .build_release/lib/libcaffe.a
LD -o .build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lhdf5_hl
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lhdf5
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:572: recipe for target '.build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0' failed
make: *** [.build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0] Error 1

Solution:

• install libhdf5-dev
• open Makefile.config, locate line containing LIBRARY_DIRS and append /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial
• locate INCLUDE_DIRS and append /usr/include/hdf5/serial/ (per this SO answer)
• rerun make all

2) gflags issues:

Problem:

In file included from src/caffe/net.cpp:10:0:
./include/caffe/common.hpp:5:27: fatal error: gflags/gflags.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Makefile:581: recipe for target '.build_release/src/caffe/net.o' failed
make: *** [.build_release/src/caffe/net.o] Error 1

Solution: Run sudo apt-get install libgflags-dev. Then rerun make all.

3) glog issues:

Problem:

In file included from src/caffe/net.cpp:10:0:
./include/caffe/common.hpp:6:26: fatal error: glog/logging.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Makefile:581: recipe for target '.build_release/src/caffe/net.o' failed
make: *** [.build_release/src/caffe/net.o] Error 1

Solution: Run sudo apt-get install libgoogle-glog-dev. Then rerun make all.

4) LMDB issues:

Problem:

In file included from src/caffe/util/db.cpp:3:0:
./include/caffe/util/db_lmdb.hpp:8:18: fatal error: lmdb.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Makefile:581: recipe for target '.build_release/src/caffe/util/db.o' failed
make: *** [.build_release/src/caffe/util/db.o] Error 1

Solution: Run sudo apt-get install liblmdb-dev. Then rerun make all.

4) LMDB issues:

Problem:

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lopencv_imgcodecs
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lopencv_videoio
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:579: recipe for target '.build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0-rc5' failed
make: *** [.build_release/lib/libcaffe.so.1.0.0-rc5] Error 1

Solution: