libmirprotobuf.so.3: undefined symbol: _ZNK6google8protobuf11MessageLite25InitializationErrorStringB5cxx11Ev

[B.]

After probably updating Ubuntu 15.10 packages, I unable to launch
software like evolution and virt-manager

$ evolution
evolution: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3: undefined symbol: _ZNK6google8protobuf11MessageLite25InitializationErrorStringB5cxx11Ev

$ virt-manager
** (process:3051): WARNING **: Failed to load shared library 'libgtk-3.so.0' referenced by the typelib: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3: undefined symbol: _ZNK6google8protobuf11MessageLite25InitializationErrorStringB5cxx11Ev

** (process:3051): WARNING **: Failed to load shared library 'libgdk-3.so.0' referenced by the typelib: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3: undefined symbol: _ZNK6google8protobuf11MessageLite25InitializationErrorStringB5cxx11Ev

$ dpkg -l | grep libmirprotobuf3
ii libmirprotobuf3:amd64 0.17.0+15.10.20151008.2-0ubuntu1 amd64 Display server for Ubuntu - RPC definitions

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 15.10
Release: 15.10
Codename: wily

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks for the bug report.

The symbol you're missing exists (should exist) in: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprotobuf-lite.so.9

Which you should have got automatically as this package was installed: libprotobuf-lite9v5

The package for wily has not changed since August, so it's likely just your system that's a little broken. So try re-installing the broken/missing package:

   sudo apt-get install libprotobuf-lite9v5

If that does not solve the issue, please also run this command and paste the output here:

   ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The protobuf packages also underwent and ABI and name change during the development of wily, so would I be correct in guessing that this copy of wily was installed prior to the official wily release?

[B. (b-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for your help

To fix I had to do
sudo apt-get purge libprotobuf-lite9v5
sudo apt-get install libprotobuf-lite9v5

as install even with --reinstall did not work (libprotobuf-lite9v5 was already up to date)
now everything is working as before.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Good news then.

Sorry, we've never seen that happen to anyone else yet...

[Florian Golemo (fgolemo-b)]

I have this problem as well and both reinstalling (automatically) and purging and reinstalling (manually) didn't work. This happened to me right after the update of my Kubuntu to 16.04. Any suggestions?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

From what I can see and recall this bug only exists on systems that were initially installed/upgraded to an unstable Ubuntu development release. The problem should not exist in stable installations.

Try something like the commands in comment #3.

[humble_coffee (humblecoffee)]

I had this problem but with a different program. In my case it was the 'zenity' program failing to load after an upgrade resulting in the system failing to boot. The workaround suggested in https://bugs.launchpad.net/timeshift/+bug/1516255 worked for me.

The problem seems to be a manual installation of Google's protobuf conflicting with libmirprotobuf. I fixed it by uninstalling Google's protobuf (by removing all relevant looking things from /usr/local/lib and /usr/local/include) and then reinstalling libmirprotobuf (which is libmirprotobuf3 on Ubuntu 16.10).