Importing opencv and getting numpy.core.multiarray failed to import

Question

Trying to install OpenCV and running into an issue where attempting to import cv2 results in this output -

    RuntimeError: module compiled against API version 9 but this version of numpy is 7

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#4>", line 1, in <module>
import cv2
ImportError: numpy.core.multiarray failed to import

I'm running on Windows 7 x64, Python v 2.7.9 Thanks!

Answer 1

The error is telling you that you have an out of date version of numpy. If you used pip to install things you can simply run pip install numpy -U, or download the appropriate version from their website.

Answer 2

In case

pip install -U numpy

doesn't work (even with sudo), you may want to make sure you're using the right version of numpy. I had the same "numpy.core.multiarray failed to import" issue, but it was because I had 1.6 installed for the version of Python I was using, even though I kept installing 1.8 and assumed it was installing in the right directory.

I found the bad numpy version by using the following command in my Mac terminal:

python -c "import numpy;print numpy. version ;print numpy. file ";

This command gave me the version and location of numpy that I was using (turned out it was 1.6.2). I went to this location and manually replaced it with the numpy folder for 1.8, which resolved my "numpy.core.multiarray failed to import" issue. Hopefully someone finds this useful!

Answer 3

I had a similar problem and I solved it by downgrading my numpy version.

What I did was:

pip install opencv-python
pip uninstall numpy
pip install numpy=1.18

This has worked for me using

Python 3.7 opencv-python 4.4.0.46 numpy 1.18.0

Answer 4

linux: sudo apt-get install python-numpy

Answer 5

if you are using ubuntu bionic beaver then try running: sudo apt-get install python-numpy had the same issue, resolve by running the above command. Hope it helps

Answer 6

In your environment you can try this command:

conda uninstall numpy

conda install -c conda-forge numpy