[Dependencies]: Missing libGL.so.1 dependency for PDF parsing

Author: talkenigsCreated Apr 5, 2026Updated Apr 5, 2026

When attempting to parse a PDF using Docling, the process fails with an ImportError because libGL.so.1 is missing from the system. This typically occurs in containerized or minimal Linux environments where OpenGL libraries are not pre-installed.

[2026-04-05, 07:59:11 UTC] {docling.py:153} ERROR - Failed to parse PDF with Docling: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[2026-04-05, 07:59:11 UTC] {docling.py:154} ERROR - PDF path: data/arxiv_pdfs/2604.01483v1.pdf
[2026-04-05, 07:59:11 UTC] {docling.py:156} ERROR - Error type: ImportError
[2026-04-05, 07:59:11 UTC] {metadata_fetcher.py:294} ERROR - Pipeline error for 2604.01483v1: Failed to parse PDF with Docling: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Root cause: New Docling version require libGL Reference: Similar to reported dependency issues in Open Issue

Suggested Resolution Add opencv-python-headless to requirements-airflow.txt

Source: jamwithai/production-agentic-rag-course

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