[Pkg-gnome-extras-maintainers] Bug#1145050: gimp: Crashes on startup: "Failed loading SDL3 library" then segfault

[James Van Zandt]

Thanks for the note!  I still have the problem.  I am running unstable, and
now have gimp version 3.2.6-1 installed.
I'm not sure how to interpret "Package gimp is not available" when dpkg
says it's installed, but at least the version you mention doesn't seem to
be available.  (And I have done "sudo apt-get update".)

$ gimp
Failed loading SDL3 library.
Segmentation fault         gimp

$ dpkg -l *gimp*
+-- Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
|+-
Status=Inst/Not-inst/Confs/Unpack/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
||+ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
│││ Name                    Version                         Architecture
Description
├┼┼─═══════════════════════─═══════════════════════════════─══════════════─═══════════
ii  gimp                    3.2.6-1                         amd64
 GNU Image Manipulation Program
ii  gimp-data               3.2.6-1                         all
 Data files for GIMP
ii  gimp-data-extras        1:2.0.4-0.2                     all
 Extra brushes and patterns for GIMP
un  gimp-dcraw              <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
un  gimp-dds                <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  gimp-dimage-color       1.1.0-3.2                       amd64
 GIMP plugin to convert Minolta DiMAGE pictures to sRGB colour space
ii  gimp-gap                2.6.0+dfsg-9                    amd64
 animation package for the GIMP
un  gimp-gmic               <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  gimp-gutenprint         5.3.4.20220624T01008808d602-3   amd64
 print plugin for the GIMP
un  gimp-help               <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  gimp-help-common        3.2.0-3                         all
 Data files for the GIMP documentation
ii  gimp-help-en            3.2.0-3                         all
 Documentation for the GIMP (English)
ii  gimp-texturize          3.0+ds-1                        amd64
 generates large textures from a small sample
ii  gimp-ufraw              0.22-4                          amd64
 gimp importer for raw camera images
un  gimp1.2-perl            <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  gir1.2-gimp-3.0:amd64   3.2.6-1                         amd64
 Introspection data for the GIMP library
un  gir1.2-gimpui-3.0       <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  libgimp-3.0-0:amd64     3.2.6-1                         amd64
 Libraries for the GNU Image Manipulation Program
un  libgimp2.0              <none>                          <none>
(no description available)
ii  libgimp2.0-doc          2.10.38-2                       all
 Developers' Documentation for the GIMP library
ii  libgimp2.0t64:amd64     2.10.38-2                       amd64
 Libraries for the GNU Image Manipulation Program

$ sudo apt install gimp=3.2.4-3+b1
Package gimp is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  libgimp-3.0-dev:i386  libgimp-3.0-dev

Error: Version '3.2.4-3+b1' for 'gimp' was not found

Gemini claims that "libsdl3-0: Supplies the runtime shared library"
libsdl3-0 is not listed as a dependency for gimp (either for version
3.2.4-3 in my original bug report, or for the version I have now).
I installed it anyway, but that didn't help:

$ sudo apt-get install libsdl3-0
[sudo] password for jrv:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
libsdl3-0 is already the newest version (3.4.16+ds-1).
libsdl3-0 set to manually installed.
Solving dependencies... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 960 not upgraded.

$ gimp
Failed loading SDL3 library.
Segmentation fault         gimp


On Sun, Sep 20, 2026 at 6:14 AM Jeremy Bícha <jbicha at debian.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 21, 2026 at 8:59 PM James Van Zandt <jim.vanzandt at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I launched GIMP from the command line.  Intially I got this
> >    printed:
> >    $ gimp
> >    GEGL-Message: 14:11:26.775: Module
> '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gegl-0.4/exr-save.so' load error:
> libOpenEXR-3_1.so.30: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
> directory
> > GEGL-Message: 14:11:26.776: Module
> '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gegl-0.4/exr-load.so' load error:
> libOpenEXR-3_1.so.30: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
> directory
> > Failed loading SDL3 library.
> > Segmentation fault         gimp
>
> Are you still experiencing this issue? If not, this may have been
> fixed with gimp 3.2.4-3+b1 which has this note "Rebuild against
> libimath-3-2-30"
>
> I believe these kinds of issues happen occasionally in Debian Unstable
> where there may be incomplete library transitions and are less likely
> to happen with Debian Testing.
>
> Thank you,
> Jeremy Bícha
>
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