Terminal (and other default Ubuntu apps) won't launch due to missing libffi.so.7 in 20.10

[Aaron Lichtman]

When I launch Terminal, I see the following error (st and urxvt are still launchable, as are Discord and Spotify, among others):

Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic systemd[1918]: Started Application launched by gnome-shell.
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[2191]: g_variant_unref: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[2191]: g_variant_unref: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: File "/usr/bin/gnome-terminal", line 9, in <module>
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: from gi.repository import GLib, Gio
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: File "/home/alichtman/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 42, in <module>
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: from . import _gi
Sep 11 18:22:39 arctic gnome-shell[18808]: ImportError: libffi.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

And then Terminal never launches.

libffi.so.8 is found in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/, but libffi.so.7 is missing.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu Groovy Gorilla (development branch)
Release: 20.10

[Aaron Lichtman (alichtman)]

Fixed by:

$ wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libffi/3.3-4/+build/18885702/+files/libffi7_3.3-4_amd64.debwget
$ sudo dpkg -i libffi7_3.3-4_amd64.deb

Thanks to TJ- and sarnold in the Ubuntu freenode server for the help.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> /home/alichtman/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/gi/__init__.py

This is not a bug in libffi. You have a local gi python module on your path which depends on library versions other than those which are current in 20.10.

It is inadvisable to put modules on your default python path that shadow system modules.

[Aaron Lichtman (alichtman)]

Oh, thanks for pointing that out. It's not exactly clear to me how this situation arose, but I'm glad it's just a me problem.

[Roberto Leinardi (leinardi)]

I have the same issue: after updating to 20.10 I get the error when I try to start

GreenWithEnvy (GWE):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/leinardi/Workspace/gitlab/gwe/.pycharm/gwe", line 31, in <module>
    import gi
  File "/home/leinardi/Workspace/gitlab/gwe/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 40, in <module>
    from . import _gi
ImportError: libffi.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You can reproduce the issue using this repository: https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gwe

[Roberto Leinardi (leinardi)]

The issue for me happens only when I use a Virtual Environment. I opened a separate bug since is not related to the Terminal and it does not happen on the System Environment:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python3-defaults/+bug/1903027

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

You have a locally-installed python which is not compatible with the libraries in Ubuntu 20.10. This is not a bug in Ubuntu.

[distinct (distinct)]

How does one remove them?

[distinct (distinct)]

sudo pip uninstall PyGObject

did it for me... I have no idea why it was installed.