Library not loaded: libmysqlclient.16.dylib error when trying to run 'rails server' on OS X 10.6 with mysql2 gem

Question

I've been struggling with this for some time.

I've installed Rails 3, gem, mysql on my Snow Leopard machine. All was going well until I created my first project and tried to run

rails server

Upon running this I get:

jontybrook$ rails server
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle: dlopen(/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle, 9): Library not loaded: libmysqlclient.16.dylib (LoadError)
  Referenced from: /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle
  Reason: image not found - /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2.rb:7
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:64:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:64:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:62:in `each'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:62:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:51:in `each'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:51:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundler.rb:112:in `require'
    from /Users/jontybrook/Dropbox/CODING/simple_cms/config/application.rb:7
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails/commands.rb:28:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails/commands.rb:28
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails/commands.rb:27:in `tap'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails/commands.rb:27
    from script/rails:6:in `require'
    from script/rails:6
jontybrook$ 

As far as I can tell the problem is with the mysql2 gem. MySQL seems to be running fine and my Gemfile references mysql2, my database.yml file seems ok also.

The error mentions

Reason: image not found - /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle

And yet

jontybrook$ cd /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2
jontybrook$ ls
client.rb   em.rb       error.rb      mysql2.bundle result.rb

MySQL2.bundle is there!?

If I use the old mysql gem, WEBrick boots fine. But that's not ideal, is it?

I've tried everything google can give me! Any help much appreciated.

Answer 1

I was never able to get any of these answers to work for me, but this is the command that I used to make it work for me. This way you don't need to use install_name_tool every time you update your mysql

sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib