LibreOffice writer will not start

Command libreoffice -writer results in

/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3: invalid ELF header

Acquired behavior. Writer worked fine, then one day stopped working. Reinstall of LibreOffice didn’t help.

Ubuntu MATE 18.04.3 LTS on AMD-64

Hello,

You have not stated what version of LO you are using. If using v6.3.x try:

 libreoffice6.3 --writer

where 6.3 is the version installed.

Please show us output from command: file /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3 : It should povide something like:

user@system:~$ file  /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, BuildID[sha1]=3f05199f1ef735aa21a336e19f013f92e588c11a, stripped

Output is from an Ubuntu MATE 18.04 using Libreoffice 6.0.7 (no PPA used)

@anon73440385,

Here is mine from Ubuntu MATE 18.04.3 using Libreoffice v6.3.2.2 (TDF):

/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, BuildID[sha1]=2dd0c9f3b6b01d5ee6a20a935f09e339bbc09117, stripped

@Ratslinger - thanks for the info.
@rjs485 - did you use PPA or TDF resources recently and now reverted to distribution version 6.0.7?(Asking since on my Ubuntu test system I do change very often and had a similar issue just some minutes ago)

Please check also Undefined symbol: _ZN11LanguageTagC1ERKS_ which points to reinstall of package uno-libs3 may be required.

Here is the output Opaque requested. I included ls to make sure the file was present.
I never paid attention to what version of Libreoffice I was using, and now none of the Libreoffice programs start, so I don’t know how to determine the version.

rjs@RSBK:~$ file /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3: data
rjs@RSBK:~$ ls /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/libuno_sal.so.3
rjs@RSBK:~$

Looks like your installation is corrupt - a type of data is definitely incorrect for an shared object library. Please try to reinstall uno-libs3 using the following command:
sudo apt install --reinstall uno-libs3

(If you never paid attentation to what’s being installed you most probably have version 6.0.7, which is installed by Ubuntu 18.04).

Took Opaque’s advice and reinstalled uno-libs 3. Then, I attempted sudo apt install libreoffice, which resulted in a big long display that ended as follows:

"Errors were encountered while processing:
/tmp/apt-dpkg-install-BGXK4R/07-libreoffice-common_1%3a6.0.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.10_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
rjs@RSBK:~$ libreoffice

Command ‘libreoffice’ not found, but can be installed with:

sudo snap install libreoffice"

which I did. Now I have libreoffice working, nice new 6.3.2.2 version. Clearly there is also some issue with dpkg, but I won’t worry about that. Thanks for assistance of Opaque and Ratslinger.