Bug#896019: libglib2.0-0: undefined symbol g_date_copy breaking many programs

[Xilin Sun]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:43:47 -0400 rektide de la faye
<rektide at voodoowarez.com> wrote:
> Package: libglib2.0-0
> Version: 2.56.1-2
> Severity: grave
> Justification: renders package unusable
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> I recently updated a number of packages on my Debian/testing laptop, via aptitude
> and included in that upgrade to satisfy dependencies was libglib-2.0-0.
>
> Since installing, many many programs on my system refuse to start. Trying
> to run nmcli, for example, returns:
>
> nmcli: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0: undefined symbol: g_date_copy
>
> I also see like errors trying to run lightdm, urxvt, vi.
> This file appears to be a symlink, pointing at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0.5600.1.
>
> There is a .4200.0 in that directory. I tried symlinking to that, but got a different set of undefined
> symbol errors keeping me from running things- g_option_group_unref.
>
> This does appear to gravely reduce the functionality of my workstation.

I recently ran into the same issue. libglib-2.0-0 was upgraded on my
sid system. The current version is libglib2.0–0/unstable,now 2.58.1–2
amd64

During the next boot, I was unable to start lightdm. The error was

Dec 03 14:32:38 host lightdm[4829]: /usr/sbin/lightdm: symbol lookup
error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0: undefined
symbol: g_date_copy

I followed the discussion in this thread, and checked these files:

my /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 was a symlink to
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0.4800.1
my /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 was a symlink to
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0.5800.1

Now that GLib puts these files under /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/, my
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.* files from an old version of
glib should certainly have been deleted during the installation of the
new version, but somehow this didn't happen.

I suppose one way to reproduce this bug is to install the system with
libglib2.0–0 around version 2.48 and then do an upgrade to the latest
version.