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JeepersCreepers

Member

Registered: 2024-07-07

Posts: 6

[SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

I don't know what happened all of a sudden, but during a recent update I noticed this warning popping up:

ldconfig: /usr/lib/ is not a symbolic link

and after trying to install some software with make, it required that I load the shared object using LD_PRELOAD, but it's nowhere to be found under the /usr/ tree.

find /usr/ -name <libname>

Last edited by JeepersCreepers (2024-07-10 17:41:40)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

/usr/lib isn't supposed to be a symbolic link, you either put some file there or there's some nonsensical LD config around.

stat /usr/lib
printenv | grep LD
cat /etc/ld.so.conf
tail /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*
tail /usr/lib/ld.so.conf.d/*

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JeepersCreepers

Member

Registered: 2024-07-07

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

thanks for the quick reply.

$ stat /usr/lib
  File: /usr/lib
  Size: 200704    	Blocks: 400        IO Block: 4096   directory
Device: 259,2	Inode: 524299      Links: 172
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-07-07 08:42:50.753279462 +0200
Modify: 2024-07-07 08:42:50.649944126 +0200
Change: 2024-07-07 08:42:50.649944126 +0200
 Birth: 2024-06-30 18:27:39.053639312 +0200

$ printenv | grep LD                                                                                                    [7:11:17]
OLDPWD=/home/mitch

$ cat /etc/ld.so.conf                                                                                                   [7:11:39]

# Dynamic linker/loader configuration.
# See ld.so(8) and ldconfig(8) for details.

include /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*.conf
include /usr/lib/ld.so.conf.d/*.conf

$ tail /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*                                                                                              [7:12:31]
zsh: no matches found: /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*

$ tail /usr/lib/ld.so.conf.d/*                                                                                          [7:13:00]
/usr/lib/libfakeroot

Last edited by JeepersCreepers (2024-07-07 07:17:52)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

Nothing suspicious there at all.
What's the exact context of the error message?
Typically you'd expect this complaint if some unversioned library is not a symlink, but it makes really no sense for a library path - maybe a link inside points the path

ldconfig -v > /tmp/ldconf.dbg 2>&1
cat /tmp/ldconf.dbg | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st 

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JeepersCreepers

Member

Registered: 2024-07-07

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

It's not an error, like it doesn't terminate the execution of anything, for instance the system upgrade.

ldconfig: /usr/lib/ is not a symbolic link

It's a long list of packages, so I thought I'd try to figure out the important bits. This one's at the beginning:

ldconfig: Path `/usr/lib64' given more than once
(from <builtin>:0 and <builtin>:0)
ldconfig: Can't stat /usr/libx32: No such file or directory
/usr/lib/libfakeroot: (from /usr/lib/ld.so.conf.d/fakeroot.conf:1)
    libfakeroot-0.so -> libfakeroot.so
/usr/lib: (from <builtin>:0)
    libthread_db.so.1 -> libthread_db.so.1
    libm.so.6 -> libm.so.6

This is somewhere in the middle:

	libpam_misc.so.0 -> libpam_misc.so.0.82.1
ldconfig: /usr/lib/ is not a symbolic link
	 -> libpcre.so.3

And this portion at the bottom:

libvtkRenderingContextOpenGL2.so.1 -> libvtkRenderingContextOpenGL2.so.9.3
libvtkImagingMath.so.1 -> libvtkImagingMath.so.9.3

ldconfig: Can't create temporary cache file /etc/ld.so.cache~: Permission denied

Last edited by JeepersCreepers (2024-07-07 07:43:09)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

stat /usr/lib/libpcre.so*
 stat /usr/local/lib/libpcre.so*

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JeepersCreepers

Member

Registered: 2024-07-07

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

  File: /usr/lib/libpcre.so -> libpcre.so.1.2.13
  Size: 17        	Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   symbolic link
Device: 259,2	Inode: 571572      Links: 1
Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-07-07 08:40:52.243333292 +0200
Modify: 2023-08-15 12:30:22.000000000 +0200
Change: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
 Birth: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
  File: /usr/lib/libpcre.so.1 -> libpcre.so.1.2.13
  Size: 17        	Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   symbolic link
Device: 259,2	Inode: 571573      Links: 1
Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-07-07 08:40:52.296666625 +0200
Modify: 2023-08-15 12:30:22.000000000 +0200
Change: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
 Birth: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
  File: /usr/lib/libpcre.so.1.2.13
  Size: 497576    	Blocks: 976        IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 259,2	Inode: 571574      Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-07-07 08:42:59.290100905 +0200
Modify: 2023-08-15 12:30:22.000000000 +0200
Change: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
 Birth: 2024-06-30 18:39:47.744450451 +0200
  File: /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3
  Size: 474808    	Blocks: 928        IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 259,2	Inode: 577393      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2024-07-07 08:42:59.443436862 +0200
Modify: 2024-07-05 12:46:17.000000000 +0200
Change: 2024-07-05 12:51:24.978519068 +0200
 Birth: 2024-07-05 12:51:24.975185803 +0200

Surprisingly, /usr/local/lib is entirely empty.

zsh: no matches found: /usr/local/lib/libpcre.so*

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

That's not surprising, but the libpcre.so* links/files don't really explain that error.
Post the entire file and the output of

pacman -Qo /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3

The file should™ be a symbolic link and the actual file sth. like /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3.0.0 but that's really not tragic.
If you can avoid the message by

sudo mv /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3 /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3.0.0
sudn ln -s libpcre.so.3.0.0 /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3

you at least know where it's coming from.

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JeepersCreepers

Member

Registered: 2024-07-07

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

I found out recently that libpcre was "owned" by the package "discord-qt" (which i found out never worked in the first place). So, I uninstalled it, and now the warning is completely gone. I suspect that the package (and thus the library) assumes /usr/lib to be a symbolic link. Maybe it was packaged for a different distribution?

Anyhow, removing the package fixed it. Thanks a lot, @seth.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] /usr/lib is not a symbolic link - issues installing libraries

\o/
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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