Error installing the "pip install 'spacy[apple]'" version, that would make use of the M1-Processors Accelerator Library

[amal1us]

Hello,

I am on a MacBook Air M1, MacOS 12.1, Kernel Version 21.2.0, with the latest Python (3.10.2) installed via pyenv.

I am getting the error that the Accelerator-Library could not be found, especially the Accelerate.h-Header.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My full terminal output is this:

Building wheel for thinc-apple-ops (pyproject.toml) ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/bin/python3.10 /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/in_process/_in_process.py build_wheel /var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/tmpqn3lnidb
       cwd: /private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-install-dudfibwe/thinc-apple-ops_664a8ffb0d474eb586c934e0f290af04
  Complete output (34 lines):
  running bdist_wheel
  running build
  running build_py
  creating build
  creating build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10
  creating build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  copying thinc_apple_ops/__init__.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  copying thinc_apple_ops/ops.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  creating build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops/tests
  copying thinc_apple_ops/tests/__init__.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops/tests
  copying thinc_apple_ops/tests/test_gemm.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops/tests
  running egg_info
  warning: no files found matching '*.pxd' under directory 'thinc_apple_ops'
  warning: no files found matching '*.txt' under directory 'thinc_apple_ops'
  writing manifest file 'thinc_apple_ops.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  copying thinc_apple_ops/blas.pyx -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  copying thinc_apple_ops/py.typed -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  running build_ext
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops
  clang -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -arch arm64 -arch x86_64 -g -I/private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-build-env-8ly59282/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/numpy/core/include -I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/include/python3.10 -c thinc_apple_ops/blas.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.9-universal2-3.10/thinc_apple_ops/blas.o
  In file included from thinc_apple_ops/blas.c:706:
  In file included from /private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-build-env-8ly59282/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/numpy/core/include/numpy/arrayobject.h:5:
  In file included from /private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-build-env-8ly59282/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/numpy/core/include/numpy/ndarrayobject.h:12:
  In file included from /private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-build-env-8ly59282/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/numpy/core/include/numpy/ndarraytypes.h:1960:
  /private/var/folders/n7/t2plqm6n2jq4khmj0bckswg40000gq/T/pip-build-env-8ly59282/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/numpy/core/include/numpy/npy_1_7_deprecated_api.h:17:2: warning: "Using deprecated NumPy API, disable it with "          "#define NPY_NO_DEPRECATED_API NPY_1_7_API_VERSION" [-W#warnings]
  #warning "Using deprecated NumPy API, disable it with " \
   ^
  thinc_apple_ops/blas.c:714:10: fatal error: 'Accelerate/Accelerate.h' file not found
  #include "Accelerate/Accelerate.h"
           ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  thinc_apple_ops/blas.c:714:10: note: did not find header 'Accelerate.h' in framework 'Accelerate' (loaded from '/System/Library/Frameworks')
  1 warning and 1 error generated.
  error: command '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/clang' failed with exit code 1
  ----------------------------------------
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for thinc-apple-ops
Failed to build thinc-apple-ops
ERROR: Could not build wheels for thinc-apple-ops, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

[amal1us]

I have tried different versions of pip, and an older one (version 21.2.4) seems to work. I am getting deprection-warnings, but everything else seems to go fine.

Still, I would like to know what causes this behavior. Any thoughts?

[pmbaumgartner]

Thanks for reporting back with a solution! Others will find it helpful if they have the same issue.

In general hard to diagnose system level bugs to know what causes something like this. It could be a change in pip, a change in the dependencies installed, whether some system dependencies are correctly installed (such as XCode), or some other detail that's hard to determine.

[ghost]

hi I came across the same problem.could you please help me? much appreciated !

python3.8(jupyter notebook)
macbook pro M1

`note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
ERROR: Failed building wheel for thinc-apple-ops
Failed to build thinc-apple-ops
ERROR: Could not build wheels for thinc-apple-ops, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

[adrianeboyd]

Like Peter said in the original answer, it can be hard for us to know what might be causing this from a distance. Double-check that XCode is installed correctly and see if you can provide more detailed information from the error messages and logs, which might help us figure out what's going on.

[tusing]

Did you ever find a solution to this, @amal1us ?

[danieldk]

If the Accelerate header cannot be found, it usually means that Xcode is not correctly configured. The best thing to do is to check that Xcode is installed to /Applications/Xcode.app and that the system is configured to use development tools from the Xcode bundle. E.g.:

$ xcode-select -p
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

If you do not get this path, you could try to switch over to Xcode for development using xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. That said, there may be other things in the environment that may prohibit finding the Accelerate header.