GDAL not found after brew updated it to 3.10

After I upgraded my brew formulae on my macbook I’m receiving this when I try to launch my code. I’m on django 4.2

Exception in thread django-main-thread:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/3.12.0/lib/python3.12/threading.py", line 1052, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/3.12.0/lib/python3.12/threading.py", line 989, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 64, in wrapper
    fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/runserver.py", line 125, in inner_run
    autoreload.raise_last_exception()
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 87, in raise_last_exception
    raise _exception[1]
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 398, in execute
    autoreload.check_errors(django.setup)()
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 64, in wrapper
    fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/__init__.py", line 24, in setup
    apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 116, in populate
    app_config.import_models()
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 269, in import_models
    self.models_module = import_module(models_module_name)
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/3.12.0/lib/python3.12/importlib/__init__.py", line 90, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1381, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1354, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1325, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 929, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 994, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "/Users/tanyatree/git/cambio/utopia-crm-standalone/core/models.py", line 10, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.db import models as gismodels
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/models/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
    import django.contrib.gis.db.models.functions  # NOQA
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/models/functions.py", line 3, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.db.models.fields import BaseSpatialField, GeometryField
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/models/fields.py", line 3, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis import forms, gdal
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/forms/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
    from .fields import (  # NOQA
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/forms/fields.py", line 2, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.gdal import GDALException
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/gdal/__init__.py", line 28, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.gdal.datasource import DataSource
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/gdal/datasource.py", line 40, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.gdal.driver import Driver
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/gdal/driver.py", line 5, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.gdal.prototypes import ds as vcapi
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/gdal/prototypes/ds.py", line 9, in <module>
    from django.contrib.gis.gdal.libgdal import lgdal
  File "/Users/tanyatree/.pyenv/versions/utopia-standalone/lib/python3.12/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/gdal/libgdal.py", line 60, in <module>
    raise ImproperlyConfigured(
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Could not find the GDAL library (tried "gdal", "GDAL", "gdal3.4.0", "gdal3.3.0", "gdal3.2.0", "gdal3.1.0", "gdal3.0.0", "gdal2.4.0", "gdal2.3.0", "gdal2.2.0"). Is GDAL installed? If it is, try setting GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH in your settings.

I’ve always had this on my settings and it never seemed to have any problem

GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = "/opt/homebrew/opt/gdal/lib/libgdal.dylib"
GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = "/opt/homebrew/opt/geos/lib/libgeos_c.dylib"

And I can confirm these still exist where they are. Is this a matter of versions? Brew doesn’t seem to want me to install an older version of gdal and nothing seems to be working.

Thanks for your time!

Yes, probably a matter of version. Officially, Django 4.2 supports GDAL up to 3.6 (Installing Geospatial libraries | Django documentation | Django).

However, you may try to tweak django/contrib/gis/gdal/libgdal.py in your Django install and add "gdal3.10.0", to the lib_names variable. A bit hacky, but worth trying.

Official support for GDAL 3.10 in Django is handled in #35891 (Confirm support for GDAL 3.10) – Django (and will target Django 5.2).

1 Like

Thank you so much for the answer.

Incredibly the problem is that I’m loading local_settings.py where the GDAL routes are and I had a circular import there and it was silently failing because of a beautiful except that did nothing.

I feel so silly.