How To Solve: cannot open shared object file [Quick Tip]

There is a list of common errors I often see in Ubuntu. There is problem with merge list, then there is BADSIG error, and a number of common Ubuntu update errors.

One of such common errors which I often see while installing a program from its source code is error while loading shared libraries. The full error generally looks like this:

error while loading shared libraries:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

For example, I was trying to use FreeRADIUS server and it showed me this error:

radiusd: error while loading shared libraries:
libfreeradius-radius-2.1.10.so:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The reason behind this error is that the libraries of the program have been installed in a place where dynamic linker cannot find it.

Fix ‘cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory’ error

In this quick tutorial, I’ll show you the quickest and the easiest way to fix this error while loading shared libraries. 

All you need to do is to open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type the following command:

sudo /sbin/ldconfig -v

This one liner solution may not be applicable in all cases and may not fix the problem for you but till date this command has never failed me.

Now if you wonder how did this tiny command fixed this problem, you should read the man page of ldconfig which says:

ldconfig creates the necessary links and cache to the most recent shared libraries found in the directories specified on the command line, in the file /etc/ld.so.conf, and in the trusted directories (/lib and /usr/lib). The cache is used by the run-time linker, ld.so or ld-linux.so. ldconfig checks the header and filenames of the libraries it encounters when determining which versions should have their links updated.

I hope this quick fix helps you in eliminating the nasty error while loading shared libraries message in Ubuntu and other Linux.

If you have questions, suggestions, feel free to drop a comment. Ciao :)