Error launching software - undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

cvnc

Hello all,

Been running Antergos for just under a year now with no real issues or at least nothing I haven’t been able to solve after some searching but I’m a bit stumped with this one.

I’m using Sidefx Houdini (3d software) and it’s been running fine until an update a few days ago. When I try to launch it I am met with this error:

/opt/hfs16.5/bin/houdini-bin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

I tried rolling back my fontconfig version as I noticed in my pacman.log it had been updated a few days ago but this stops my desktop from starting on boot. I’ve read about having various versions of fontconfig installed that can conflict but I’ve only got the version from the official repo.

Here’s a link to my logs, couldn’t find a way to attach it: logs.tar

Thanks for any help you can give.

manuel

@cvnc
Here’s an unorthodox method (haven’t tested it, beware …):

install package downgrade
downgrade fontconfig to the previous working version
copy files /usr/lib/fontconfig.so* to e.g. /usr/lib/foobar/
upgrade your system normally to get current fontconfig
create symlinks to the missing fontconfig libs

Here’s how could look like (but may need to modify to your system!):

sudo pacman -S --needed downgrade
sudo downgrade fontconfig
cd /usr/lib
sudo mkdir foobar
sudo cp fontconfig.so.1.* foobar/
sudo pacman -Syu
sudo ln -s foobar/fontconfig.so.1.X   # change X to the missing lib!

Now you hopefully can use the software and also boot to your system.

manuel

Later when houdini gets properly updated, you should remove any symlinks to /usr/lib/foobar/fontconfig.so.1.* (and the directory foobar too).

cvnc

Thanks so much for the help, following your instructions I was able to copy and symlink the old fontconfig. I then used LD_PRELOAD to force houdini to load the right file and it works!

Hopefully this is a temporary fix until something gets fixed (not sure what exactly is causing this though!)

Your help was much appreciated, wouldn’t have been able to get houdini running without it.

manuel

@cvnc
Well that really was a temporary workaround only, and should be removed when a real fix arrives, so that the workaround itself wouldn’t cause any problems.