I’m trying to run ParaView 5.5.2 on Debian 8 (in an OpenVZ container, but that should not matter IMO). Previously I was able to start it successfully in the same environment (I prefer --mesa-llvm option, but have also used --mesa - the host server does not have a GPU card). Now, it just prints a Fontconfig warning message in the console and stays there (i.e., does not exit). I’m wondering about the optimal plan of investigation to determine what recent system changes might have been of negative impact to ParaView setup. Your help will be much appreciated.
I have a similar problem with the ParaView 5.6.2 binaries.
[sfux@lo-login-01 ~]$ paraview
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 146: blank doesn't take any effect anymore. please remove it from your fonts.conf
Aborted
[sfux@lo-login-01 ~]$
Operating system:
[sfux@lo-login-01 ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)
[sfux@lo-login-01 ~]$ uname -a
Linux lo-login-01 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Sep 26 15:12:11 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[sfux@lo-login-01 ~]$
In my case the GUI does not start at all. When I try to start the GUI with paraview --mesa, then I get an error about a zlib version problem:
[sfux@lo-login-01 lib]$ paraview --mesa
/cluster/apps/paraview/5.6.2/x86_64/lib/paraview: /cluster/apps/paraview/5.6.2/x86_64/lib/mesa/libz.so.1: version `ZLIB_1.2.9' not found (required by /cluster/apps/paraview/5.6.2/x86_64/lib/libpng16.so.16)
The second problem is strange, as both libraries (libz and libpng) are both provided with the paraview binaries:
@samfux84 Fortunately, in my case, the problem went away by itself (even though I would prefer to know what system changes might have influenced that, it is practically impossible due to a variety of changes occurred on the system, so I decided not to waste my time on attempts to investigate this further). Having said that, your case (that is, the second problem; I’m not sure about the first one) seems to be different and arguably easier to investigate. Clearly, bundled zlib library is not of the version that bundled libpng library requires. I realize that it is quite strange, to say the least, but, potentially, it is either a broken distribution or installation issue. Anyway, I have checked my system and, based on ldd output, libpng relies on a system-bundledzlib (in my case [Debian 8], it is located in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu directory). So, the easiest approach to try to fix this issue is to rename your ParaView-bundled zlib, assuming that libpng will use the system-bundled one. If it does not work, an alternative approach would be to install the required version of zlib library somewhere locally and then update your LD_LIBRARY_PATH with the relevant directory as the first entry (that would work only if DT_RPATH is not hardwired into the binary: see details here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/531095/148105). I hope that this helps. Good luck!
We have a libfontconfig in our packages and the configuration file format has updated in recent times. It may not support reading the new configuration files. There may be some way to point it at another configuration file (though finding a file in the format it wants might be harder to find).
In any case, I think @samfux84 and @ablekh issues are completely unrelated.
Since the initial issue of this thread, created by @ablekh has been resolved I will close this.
@samfux84 : Please create your own topic for discussing your issue. @ablekh : If you want to investigate how your issue went away, please send me a PM and I will reopen this.
Ah, sorry. I missed the “Aborted” after that output. A backtrace from gdb would be very helpful. If it is during the load of some library, LD_DEBUG=libs can help trace what is getting loaded when. It could be a library path conflict.