[SOLVED] Firefox undefined symbol

jdarnold · 2016-04-15 12:20:51

I'm getting the following error when trying to run Firefox 45.0.2-1 (the latest in Packages):

$ firefox
firefox: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/firefox/libxul.so: undefined symbol: gtk_widget_path_iter_set_object_name

I've seen a few discussions about downgrading Firefox and getting this error, but this is the latest version and I'm still getting it. Have I missed an upgrade or something? Everything should be up to date, AFAIK. But I'm not sure where it is looking for this symbol. Obviously, a GTK library, but who knows which one of thousands?

Any hints on getting FF to run, even if it doesn't run very well?

Last edited by jdarnold (2016-04-15 18:28:03)

Trilby · 2016-04-15 14:04:45

jdarnold wrote:

Have I missed an upgrade or something? Everything should be up to date, AFAIK.

How should we know if your system is up to date? When did you last run pacman -Syu? Where is your pacman log? If you can only guess, imagine how useless our input would be.

jdarnold wrote:

Obviously, a GTK library, but who knows which one of thousands?

Google knows, and so would you if you asked it.

You've certainly been here long enough to know how to provide the relevant logs and diagnostics, but you've really given us nothing to work with here but speculation. Take some of your own time to gather the relevant information before expecting everyone else to play 20 questions to get it from you.

jdarnold · 2016-04-15 18:26:28

I run pacman -Syu pretty much every morning. Firefox worked yesterday, doesn't work today. I imagine it is from this update:

[2016-04-14 11:54] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-gtk3 (3.18.9-1 -> 3.20.2-2)

which seems to have given other people on the board fits. Firefox was updated at the same time:

[2016-04-14 11:54] [ALPM] upgraded firefox (45.0.1-1 -> 45.0.2-1)

So I did a little more digging, looking in my pacman.log. I found this:

[2016-01-11 17:12] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -Syu'
[2016-01-11 17:12] [PACMAN] synchronizing package lists
[2016-01-11 17:12] [PACMAN] starting full system upgrade
[2016-01-11 18:05] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman --asdeps -U /var/cache/apacman/pkg/gtk3-ubuntu-3.18.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz'
[2016-01-11 21:52] [ALPM] transaction started
[2016-01-11 21:52] [ALPM] removed gtk3 (3.18.6-2)
[2016-01-11 21:52] [ALPM] installed gtk3-ubuntu (3.18.6-1)

which is the culprit, because gtk3-ubuntu is only on 3.18 and the missing dependency is in gtk3 3.20 (added in 3.20). Now why do I have gtk3-ubuntu from the AUR and not gtk3 from the official packages, which is up to 3.20?

I'm not really sure. At the same time gtk3-ubuntu was replacing gtk3, something added ido:

[2016-01-11 21:53] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman --asdeps -U /var/cache/apacman/pkg/ido-1:13.10.0.15.10.20151002-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz'
[2016-01-11 21:54] [ALPM] transaction started
[2016-01-11 21:54] [ALPM] installed ido (1:13.10.0.15.10.20151002-1)
[2016-01-11 21:54] [ALPM] transaction completed

which (now!) depends on gtk3. And actually, the above change to ido 13.10, according to the changelist for the PKGBUILD, changed the depends to be gtk3-ubuntu. I imagine I was prompted to replace the gtk3 package with the gtk3-ubunutu one, but who remembers? Then, the ido package was "downgraded" back to its current 12.10 on 2016-02-07. But because the version number went down and not up, apacman didn't recommend an update for it, so it left it alone.

Thus I was left with a gtk3 that was at 3.18 and not a 3.20. Now I'm not sure why I have / had the 'ido' package in the first place. Nothing I currently have installed depends on it, as I was able to do a pacman -R on it, then a pacman -S for gtk3, which prompted to replace gtk3-ubuntu, which in the end solved my Firefox problem.

Phew!

Thanks for the prod though, Trilby. The pacman log doesn't lie.

WorMzy · 2016-04-15 19:20:48

This is the consequence of using an AUR helper that blurs the lines between supported and unsupported packages -- you have no idea what is on your system, and things break.

Perhaps this is a sign that you should reconsider your usage of such a tool.

Mod note: Moving to AUR Issues.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-04-15 12:20:51

[SOLVED] Firefox undefined symbol

#2 2016-04-15 14:04:45

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox undefined symbol

#3 2016-04-15 18:26:28

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox undefined symbol

#4 2016-04-15 19:20:48

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox undefined symbol

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