XGBoostLibraryNotFound: Cannot find XGBoost Library in the candidate path, did you install compilers and run build.sh in root path?

Question

I am facing this problem while moving the python-package directory of XGBoost.

Traceback (most recent call last): File "setup.py", line 19, in LIB_PATH = libpath'find_lib_path' File "xgboost/libpath.py", line 46, in find_lib_path 'List of candidates:\n' + ('\n'.join(dll_path))) builtin.XGBoostLibraryNotFound: Cannot find XGBoost Library in the candidate path, did you install compilers and run build.sh in root path?

Could anyone explain to me how to fix it? thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You get that message when trying to install the xgboost Python package without the xgboost binaries present. The proper way to install the xgboost Python package from source is the following (assuming you have a compiler such as gcc installed):

git clone --recursive https://github.com/dmlc/xgboost.git
cd xgboost
./build.sh
cd python-package
python setup.py install

I prefer to do it inside a virtual environment. Note that the option --recursive when cloning the repo is essential since it will also clone folders from different repos such as dmlc-core which are necessary for building xgboost.

Answer 2

The other answers didn't work for me so I installed xgboost through Conda commands as listed here.

Just run conda install -c conda-forge xgboost

Answer 3

The first answer's suggestions did not work for me, and left me with the same error as the original question.

If I'm assuming correctly that your full error message is something like this:

C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package>python setup.py install
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 19, in <module>
    LIB_PATH = [os.path.relpath(libfile, CURRENT_DIR) for libfile in libpath['find_lib_path']()]
  File "xgboost/libpath.py", line 49, in find_lib_path
    'List of candidates:\n' + ('\n'.join(dll_path)))
XGBoostLibraryNotFound: Cannot find XGBoost Library in the candidate path, did you install compilers and run build.sh in root path?
List of candidates:
C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package\xgboost\xgboost.dll
C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package\xgboost\../../lib/xgboost.dll
C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package\xgboost\./lib/xgboost.dll
C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35\xgboost\xgboost.dll
C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package\xgboost\../../windows/x64/Release/xgboost.dll
C:\Users\Matt\xgboost\python-package\xgboost\./windows/x64/Release/xgboost.dll

then the solution is to

1) Get/find/download the library that setup.py is looking for. Search the xgboost folder for .dll files. See if you can find something like xgboost.dll it might be called libxgboost.dll. If you can, move to step 2. If you cannot find it download it here

2) Copy the .dll file into the xgboost/python-package/xgboost folder. If that .dll is not called xgboost.dll (i.e. if it's called libxgboost.dll) then change the name to xgboost.dll

3) Run the commands as outlined in Gustavo answer. Note these are meant to be run from Git Bash.

If you want a more soup-to-nuts tutorial, this was the best one I found.