X applications crash after upgrade

[min]

Binary package hint: libcairo2

This may be related to libcairo2, but it may also be some other package with dependency problems towards libcairo2...

I have been running Gutsy for some weeks. Yesterday libcairo2 was upgraded to version 1.4.10-1ubuntu4.4. I did not add or remove any packages, just a standard upgrade. Afterwards, my computer was rendered virtually unusable. All X application started crashing/restarting. First gnome-screensaver could not display the login/unlock prompt and I had to kill it. Then firefox crashed and could not be started afterwards. Then I rebooted my computer and gdm (gdmgreeter) would only flash the login prompt and then restart. Nothing tasty in the logs, as far as I can see, though. If I run startx, X starts fine (mouse pointer and wallpaper are displayed) but the gnome components (menu bar, desktop icons, etc.) do not. First they flash like they are started, then crash, then restart, a couple of times. Then the system seems to give up and all I have is my wall paper and mouse pointer.

Something that may give a clue: If I try to start gnome-terminal over SSH, I get the following error message: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libXft.so.2: undefined symbol: FT_Library_SetLcdFilter

I downgraded libcairo2 to the version provided by feisty (1.4.2-0ubuntu1.2). Then at least gdm, firefox, gnome-screensaver and thunderbird started working again. But I still can't start gnome-terminal - same error message. If I downgrade also libxft2 (2.1.12-1_i386), the error message complains about the same undefined symbol, but now in libcairo.so.2.

This may be the same bug as Bug #145244, but downgrading libxft2 to feisty version and keep libcairo2 as gutsy does not help as that bug report states.

I have also tried downgrading to the other two libcairo2 versions provided by gutsy-updates and gutsy (1.4.10-1ubuntu4.1 and 1.4.10-1ubuntu4), but had no luck. Those versions makes the system behave as badly as the 1.4.10-1ubuntu4.4 version.

Any clues?

[min (min-lip-wifi)]

I removed the symbolic link /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6, which is added by the package libfreetype6. Should this symbolic link perhaps be removed from libfreetype6? Or perhaps only the path is wrong (/usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6 -> libfreetype.so.6.3.2, note: no path to libfreetype.so.6.3.2). But changing the link to /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6 -> /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.2 does not help.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. The local directory is not something the distribution use, do you have things you installed there? They could create the issue, could you try without those?

[min (min-lip-wifi)]

Ok, then it was probably an old version of libfreetype (not installed as ubuntu package) causing the problem. After removing all libfreetype files in /usr/local/lib, the symbolic link seized to appear at libfreetype6 or libxft re-installation. Thank you for your help, Sebastian! But, I'm curious, why did this symbolic link re-appear every time I re-installed some Ubuntu packages? Always nice to learn something from the problems you run into...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Not sure why reinstalling the package do that, as written ubuntu doesn't use the local directory, closing the bug since that's not one