It's not only about icedove. Emacs can't start either.

Emacs is working fine for me, I'm running version 27.2, build 1.

Latest version of upstream (Thunderbird), 91.2.0-2, lists libffi.so=8-64 as a dependency, which means an upgrade to Icedove is what's needed.

On my system with emacs 27.2-1:
emacs: error while loading shared libraries: libffi.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Downgrading libffi to the previous version (3.3-4) and glib2 makes emacs complain about missing libffi.so.8.

Same problem here. This appeared since removing (compatibility) libffi.so.7 in 3.4.2-4:
https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/commit/856bd5b52222f1456334e0a08c13e58bdfda9db0

It seems that several packages in parabola must be rebuilt against libffi.so.8 as Arch did for this transition...

• Plasma
• Konsole
• xfce4-terminal
• mpv
• Dolphin
• Kdenlive
• WeeChat

I'd strongly discourage upgrading Parabola until this issue is fixed

avalos wrote:

Icedove needs an upgrade so badly!

I agree. Though I do believe the package maintainers are working on it. I sawan updated version of Icedove on a test repo.

I'm also curious as to why this happened. libffi and mpv, for instance, are from the Arch Linux repos, there's no Libre/Non-PRISM version of them on Parabola. I'm guessing mpv depends on a package which has a Libre version and it depends on libffi? If that's the case, then I believe there's no need to rebuild all of these packages.

Jetpack wrote:

Like laust said, this problem is happening with other packages. I can't run these programs:

• Plasma
• Konsole
• xfce4-terminal
• mpv
• Dolphin
• Kdenlive
• WeeChat

All of these programs are running fine for me, except for WeeChat and xfce4-terminal, which I don't have installed. Emacs is also working.

That's interesting. Maybe it's something to do with the additional repositories I have.

• cups
• dirmngr from package gnupg
• libreoffice
• okular
• skanlite
• kstars
• viking

There are probably others.
Note: dunst has been updated and now works. Hopefully the rest will follow.

Jetpack wrote:

That's interesting. Maybe it's something to do with the additional repositories I have.

• [nonprism]
• [nonsystemd]
• [libre]
• [core]
• [extra]
• [community]
• [pcr]

I am also using the nonprism and nonsystemd repositories. I can confirm LibreOffice does not work as well indeed, same for dirmngr. Fortunately GnuPG works.

Does anyone know which packages exactly require a rebuild?

Also, I tried running Plasma on X11 instead of Wayland and it freezes instead of closing immediately after opening. For now, I'm using Xfce with no problems.

I am also having this issue, I've narrowed it down to libp11-kit in nonsystemd.
The same issue also happens on a brand new install from the latest install medium.
For now, it can be mitigated by either manually installing the version of p11-kit from core or copying the libffi.so.7 library from a backup.

• ffmpeg
• mpd
• neomutt

Same problem here, though only in icedove. Most other packages mentioned above (libreoffice, mpv, ffmpeg, mpd) are working fine. Do note that those packages come directly from Arch where they have probably been rebuilt to cater for the new libffi. Just check if you're running the latest version.

As for icedove, downgrading libffi to 3.4.2-3 works around the problem for the time being. Hopefully the maintainers will find the time to rebuild it soon.

That was it, kira64xyz! Thanks for sharing this. I compiled libp11-kit myself and everything works again :)

I figured out what was causing Python programs that rely on libffi to stop working. Turns out in PIP I had locally (--user) installed (as a dependency) a version of PyGObject that relies on libffi.so.7, so packages were loading it instead of the one globally installed by Pacman. I solved it by removing the user version of PyGObject so that programs load the Pacman version.

I uninstalled Icedove and switched to Claws Mail, but I think I'm switching back once Icedove is working again.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I did make a pull request for this a full week ago: https://pagure.io/abslibre/pull-request/32

I do understand that Parabola is a small distro with very busy volunteers, though. If you need a maintainer for nonsystemd packages, I'm available.

As a temporary fix I installed libffi7: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/libffi7/

can confirm, after upgrading everything is now fully functional again! Thanks a lot :)

only non-systemd users were affected

bill-auger, I am a systemd user and I am still affected, but just on icedove.
The p11-kit package I have installed comes from [core].

dllud wrote:

only non-systemd users were affected

bill-auger, I am a systemd user and I am still affected, but just on icedove.
The p11-kit package I have installed comes from [core].

Same! I'm using systemd as well, and Icedove is the only package that doesn't work. Doesn't seem like p11-kit is related, but I don't even know what it is, so I'm not sure.

dllud wrote:

only non-systemd users were affected

bill-auger, I am a systemd user and I am still affected, but just on icedove.
The p11-kit package I have installed comes from [core].

I'm having the same issue, but just with Icedove as well.

linking to #2053 - currently, any successful icedove build closes both tickets

the icedove in libre is still broken - are ppl happy with the one in libre-testing? - it would be good to promote it libre

are ppl happy with the one in libre-testing?

Not so much. At least for me. The one in libre-testing was built almost 1 year ago. It has the same dependency problems. For instance:

cannot resolve "libvpx.so=6-64", a dependency of "icedove"

bill-auger wrote:

the icedove in libre is still broken - are ppl happy with the one in libre-testing? - it would be good to promote it libre

I've been happy with it. It just needs a rebuild to update libvpx.so and it will be fine to promote it to libre IMO.

i have tried to rebuild it several times this week; with no
success yet

Can confirm the same issue and error dialog, 2022-04-09

just an update:

to be clear WRT the ticket title, libffi is/was a symptom, not the problem - the blocker of this ticket is that icedove has failed to compile since v78 was current - FWIW, ive tried several releases that i did not bother to comment about

tried again, at v102.9 - this time, it compiles and runs; but the program is missing all texts - the branding may need re-working now

as a concession, i have packaged the trisquel icedove binaries for parabola in PCR - icedove - the package name is 'icedove-bin', if people want to use it

i am keeping this ticket 'open'; because the is not an ideal solution

binary packages are generally not acceptable
icedove has been unable to build for a long time though
libre/icedove still works; but is quite out-of-date
ideally, let's fix libre/icedove and delete pcr/icedove-bin

there is icedove 115.9.0 in libre-testing - can people try it and report your experience? - if it has no problems, it can be promoted to libre

# pacman -U https://repo.parabola.nu/pool/parabola/icedove-1:115.9.0-1.parabola1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Thanks a lot bill-auger! I've been trying it for the day and everything seems to work fine. I guess you can promote it to libre.

Faced one issue: contacts were not automatically moved into the new address book format (SQLite).
Had to manually import abook.mab (personal address book) and history.mab (collected addresses) with Tools > Import.

Thanks a lot bill-auger! I've been trying it for the day and everything seems to work fine. I guess you can promote it to libre.

FWIW, oaken-source completed it; but glad it works finally - i had this one on
the shelf for far too long

dllud wrote:

Faced one issue: contacts were not automatically moved into the new address book format (SQLite).
Had to manually import abook.mab (personal address book) and history.mab (collected addresses) with Tools > Import.

Would you be able to write a short guide on this issue how to fix it manually? We could submit a news item with that guide along with the release of icedove to libre.

A news item as this should suffice:

icedove 115.9.0 update may require manual intervention to recover address books¶

Icedove 115.9.0 brings in a new address book format based on SQLite (.sqlite), replacing the old Mork format (.mab).
Upon update, if your address books turn out empty, you may recover your contacts by manually importing abook.mab (personal address book) and history.mab (collected addresses) with Tools > Import > Import from File. Both these files are located at your Icedove profile directory (e.g. ~/.icedove/xxxxxxxx.default/history.mab).

glad to see this resolved - i just deleted icecat-bin from the repos and from abslibre - i suppose icedove can be moved to libre now, and close this and the associated tickets? #2053 #2958 #3034

Yup, seems to work fine and all those issues are either solved or non-applicable now.
#2958 no longer applies, Thunderbird now has built-in OpenPGP support. icedove-extension-enigmail is now incompatible and should be removed from libre when you move the new icedove.

I hope icedove is a bit easier to build nowadays, hopefully you can update it more often from now on.

i just remembered 'icedove-extension-enigmail' - that is incompatible with the latest icedove - icedove now includes that feature by default - so 'icedove-extension-enigmail' can be deleted

also, im not sure what to do about the language packs - ordinarily those need to be rebuilt along with the client - i have not been making them for iceweasel because they are available in the GUI now - maybe icedove has the same ability and we could drop the language packs

deleted icedove-extension-enigmail and icedove-bin - moved icedove 115 to libre

i closed the related tickets, but leaving this one open, because the i686, armv7h, and nonprism counterparts are still the old version