PIL /JPEG Library: “decoder jpeg not available”

Question

I tried to use PIL to do some JPEG work in my django app with PIL but I'm getting this IOError.. not sure what to do.

""decoder jpeg not available""

Am I missing the JPEG decoder from my server? If so, how do I fix it?

Answer 1

You need to install jpeg library first and reinstall your PIL. For example, I'm using CentOS, to install libjpeg, I run

sudo yum install -y libjpeg-devel

It depends on what kind of linux you are using. And here you have to remove the old PIL

rm -rf /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/PIL-1.1.7-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/

Then install the PIL

sudo easy_install PIL

Answer 2

I have found this answer from author "edward"

On Ubuntu precise, PIL doesn't find the jpeg library files, even once they are installed. The easiest way to fix this is to make a symlink after you have installed the jpeg dev package. So, I needed an extra step:

for x64 OS

pip uninstall PIL
sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so /usr/lib
pip install PIL

for x32 OS

pip uninstall PIL
sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so /usr/lib
pip install PIL

I confirm that this is working for me on Ubuntu Linux 12.04.

---

If you are a Mac user - you need to install Xcode and Command Line Tools. Read how to do this

Answer 3

A stronger answer can be found at install pil on virtualenv with libjpeg

For me what finally worked on Ubutu was:

pip uninstall PIL
sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev
pip install PIL

The Python Imaging Library (PIL) seems really picky about version and location of the jpeg libraries. And because PIL is written in C and compiled, you need the development versions of the library in addition to the runtime versions.

Answer 4

I don't have sudo privileges, because I am on a shared bluehost server. So I can't run any of those sudo apt-get jpeg commands. I ended up running

pip uninstall pil
pip install pillow

and apparently pillow was able to find support for jpegs.

Answer 5

There is a selftest.py in your Imaging installation folder, try:

python selftest.py

you will see something like that:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
*** PIL CORE support not installed
*** TKINTER support not installed
--- JPEG support ok
--- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support ok
*** FREETYPE2 support not installed
*** LITTLECMS support not installed
--------------------------------------------------------------------

if JPEG support not available, Centos:

yum install libjpeg-devel
yum install freetype-devel 
yum install libpng-devel

Answer 6

For mac's users, You can download the library from here: http://ethan.tira-thompson.com/Mac_OS_X_Ports.html. Then, uninstall and install PIL

Answer 7

You can build PIL from source: http://effbot.org/zone/pil-decoder-jpeg-not-available.htm

Answer 8

On Debian distributions use libjpeg62-turbo-dev instead of libjpeg8-dev