OpenCV: ImportError: libGL.so.1 cannot open shared object file
>>> import cv2
ImportError: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Immediate Remediation
bash
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libgl1 libglib2.0-0
Root Cause Analysis
OpenCV dynamically links against the system OpenGL library (libGL.so.1) for GUI/highgui features; minimal Docker images and headless servers often omit this system package, causing imports of cv2 to fail.
Verification & Guardrails
- For headless servers, replace your `opencv-python` package with `opencv-python-headless`.
- On RHEL/CentOS run `sudo yum install mesa-libGL`; on Alpine Linux use `apk add libgl`.
- After installing, restart your Python process to verify the import works.
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