Library not loaded: libmysqlclient.16.dylib error

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

following lines works for me. I am using mac 10.7.2 .

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

Answer 2

Thanks, Ogapo! Exporting that alias worked for me, and then I followed the link, and in my case the mysql2.bundle was up in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle so I adjusted the install_name_tool to modify that bundle rather than one in ~/.rvm and got that working the way it should be done.

So now:

   $ otool -L /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle 
    /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql2-0.2.6/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle:
        /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/libruby.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.8.0, current version 1.8.7)
        /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.16.dylib (compatibility version 16.0.0, current version 16.0.0)
        /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 125.2.1)

Answer 3

If you're using OSX and installed mysql using brew, you can:

brew link mysql

If you're having trouble with the version (I had mysql 5.7 running while my gem required 5.6.25), you can

brew unlink mysql
brew switch mysql 5.6.25

Answer 4

This is how it worked for me:

I ran the below command
sudo install_name_tool -change libmysqlclient.18.dylib /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib ~/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/gems/mysql2-0.2.7/lib/mysql2/mysql2.bundle

My environments:
$ rails -v Rails 3.0.6

$ mysql --version
mysql Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.5.11, for osx10.6 (i386) using readline 5.1

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.9.2p180 (2011-02-18 revision 30909) [x86_64-darwin10.7.0]

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 5

This fix worked very well for me:

Add the following to to your ~/.profile

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/mysql/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

http://www.rickwargo.com/2010/12/16/installing-mysql-5-5-on-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-and-rails-3/

Answer 6

In OSX El Capitan update when you do this:

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

it throws an error like

ln: /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib: Operation not permitted

So to avoid this, what you can do is first locate libmysqlclient.18.dylib using the command

User$ locate libmysqlclient.18.dylib

In my case it returned /usr/local/mysql-5.5.24-osx10.5-x86_64/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib

So instead of usr/lib/ we will create symlink to usr/local/lib/ like this :

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

More details : https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/7935