Installation with pip: sndfile.h: No such file or directory

[michaelklachko]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask for help, but while trying to run this code, I'm failing with an error that's pointing to your library:

$ python preprocess_LibriSpeech.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "preprocess_LibriSpeech.py", line 17, in <module>
    import soundfile as sf
  File "/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages/soundfile.py", line 267, in <module>
    _snd = _ffi.dlopen('sndfile')
  File "/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cffi/api.py", line 141, in dlopen
    lib, function_cache = _make_ffi_library(self, name, flags)
  File "/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cffi/api.py", line 802, in _make_ffi_library
    backendlib = _load_backend_lib(backend, libname, flags)
  File "/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cffi/api.py", line 797, in _load_backend_lib
    raise OSError(msg)
OSError: ctypes.util.find_library() did not manage to locate a library called 'sndfile'

When I tried to install sndfile library with pip, I'm getting the following error:

$ pip install sndfile
Collecting sndfile
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/f2/74/d7bb58d9aa8b808cf035814a0caad5245da72399a4078725a4dfc561762c/sndfile-0.1.2.tar.gz
Requirement already satisfied: cffi>=1.0.0 in /home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages (from sndfile) (1.11.5)
Requirement already satisfied: pycparser in /home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/lib/python3.5/site-packages (from cffi>=1.0.0->sndfile) (2.18)
Building wheels for collected packages: sndfile
  Running setup.py bdist_wheel for sndfile ... error
  Complete output from command /home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-e52aippu/sndfile/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" bdist_wheel -d /tmp/pip-wheel-p0bs1h3c --python-tag cp35:
  running bdist_wheel
  running build
  running build_py
  creating build
  creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5
  creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
  copying sndfile/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
  copying sndfile/build.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
  copying sndfile/formats.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
  copying sndfile/io.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
  running build_ext
  generating cffi module 'build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c'
  creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5
  building 'sndfile._sndfile' extension
  creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build
  creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5
  gcc -pthread -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -I/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/include/python3.5m -c build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.o
  build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c:494:21: fatal error: sndfile.h: No such file or directory
  compilation terminated.
  error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

  ----------------------------------------
  Failed building wheel for sndfile
  Running setup.py clean for sndfile
Failed to build sndfile
Installing collected packages: sndfile
  Running setup.py install for sndfile ... error
    Complete output from command /home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-e52aippu/sndfile/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-gsl8uwor/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build
    creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5
    creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
    copying sndfile/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
    copying sndfile/build.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
    copying sndfile/formats.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
    copying sndfile/io.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile
    running build_ext
    generating cffi module 'build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c'
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5
    building 'sndfile._sndfile' extension
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5
    gcc -pthread -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -I/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/include/python3.5m -c build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.o
    build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.5/sndfile._sndfile.c:494:21: fatal error: sndfile.h: No such file or directory
    compilation terminated.
    error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

    ----------------------------------------
Command "/home/michael/miniconda2/envs/SpeechRecog/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-e52aippu/sndfile/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-gsl8uwor/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-install-e52aippu/sndfile/

Any help is appreciated!

[michaelklachko]

I solved this by separately installing libsndfile1 library:

sudo apt-get install libsndfile1

[Vichoko]

What can I do if I don't have superuser permission on the machine?

[cowarder]

@Vichoko DId you solve this problem? I met the same problem as you. sndfile.h is always not found.
I installed libsndfile with prefix='/home/userme/libsndfile' and add '/home/userme/libsndfile/bin' and '/home/userme/libsndfile/include' to PATH in ~/.bashrc, but it doesn't work.
I copy '/home/userme/libsndfile/include/sndfile.h' to '/home/userme/python36/include/python3.6m/' this error disappeared, but a new error "/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lsndfile".
I think if you just copy and paste, there will be many files, what we really should do is to configure the right path, but I don't know how.

[hyamanieu]

@Vichoko DId you solve this problem? I met the same problem as you. sndfile.h is always not found. I installed libsndfile with prefix='/home/userme/libsndfile' and add '/home/userme/libsndfile/bin' and '/home/userme/libsndfile/include' to PATH in ~/.bashrc, but it doesn't work. I copy '/home/userme/libsndfile/include/sndfile.h' to '/home/userme/python36/include/python3.6m/' this error disappeared, but a new error "/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lsndfile". I think if you just copy and paste, there will be many files, what we really should do is to configure the right path, but I don't know how.

Need to install the headers:

sudo apt install libsndfile1-dev

@Vichoko DId you solve this problem? I met the same problem as you. sndfile.h is always not found. I installed libsndfile with prefix='/home/userme/libsndfile' and add '/home/userme/libsndfile/bin' and '/home/userme/libsndfile/include' to PATH in ~/.bashrc, but it doesn't work. I copy '/home/userme/libsndfile/include/sndfile.h' to '/home/userme/python36/include/python3.6m/' this error disappeared, but a new error "/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lsndfile". I think if you just copy and paste, there will be many files, what we really should do is to configure the right path, but I don't know how.

Need to install the headers:

sudo apt install libsndfile1-dev

You save my day!