When trying to run gedit from a command line I saw this in a popup. I'm using Centos Release 6.3 Final, linux-2.6.32-279.

symbol lookup error: /usr/lib64/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0: undefined symbol: "_XGetRequest"

At this time I cannot open any new windows, including terminal for which I receive "a problem in the (fill in the blank) package has been detected".

My only terminal access is going to another terminal process using control-alt-F2 (forgive the missing techniacal term). A check of new packages I installed contain a range of gtk2, gd, libsigc++, glibmm24, glibc, glib2, gtksourceview2 packages and updated more gtk2 packages. This was evident from a grep of the /var/log/messages file for 'Installed' and 'Updated'.

One thing when doing an ldd on the package /usr/lib64/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0, all appeared to be present. Something makes me think I have to high of a version of one of the glib packages perhaps. I seem to remember it telling me I had a version 2.X something and needed a significant revision level update with some package, but I cannot seem to isolate it at this time, seemed like a big jump maybe the c++?

Thank you for tolerating the few details I could cobble togerther at present. I believe if the machine goes off I may brick the box, local weather often causes power outages... If insufficient detail please ask, the system is limited, so I've not given sufficient package detail, but if someone has a hint I can chase it down.

Well your glibc is a big backbone of your system.


I am wondering if you just run a ldconfig if that will fix your undefined symbol errors as that should rebuild all of your library links.


If taht doesnt work you can try doing a yum update to update the other packages but I am very surprised that if you did use yum to install this that the dependencies were not resolved for you and the ldconfig should be run as a apart of the install process.

You can't uninstall or downgrade glibc easily, it hoses your system into a state, well kind of like what you're in.

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So I believe I have used yum install or update to install everything, but perhaps one or two libraries. I'm a new developer so if I'd have documented my environment better I could easily pick it out, but I'm grateful, and will look for the one which I may have done with tar and ./configure.

ldconfig did not appear to do anything on the alt-ctrl-F2 window. I looked for processes, and there are quite a few, top revealed nothing. I did a yum update gnome* just in case it would help. And I have not uninstalled anything, so I'm unsure what triggered it. Thank you for the hints.

ldconfig should not show any output to the screen, or "stdout". If the command completes almost instantly then you know your links were already built, if it takes a second or two you know that it is building links.


This is because ldconfig is in its "quiet" mode by default, a lot of programs have a quiet mode. If you want to see what it is actually doing add the -v, or "verbose" mode, to the command. Most commands have a -v for verbose as well.

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Thank you for the insights, I believe the 'update' approach to be a bit rough, but I updated gnome*, xorg*, glib* and libX* after reading about someone unable to open anything GTK related because of libX - that did the trick. Whatever I installed that put things out of order was corrected. All windows open, 'about me', 'terminal', etc.

I appreciate the hints about ldconfig and will read more about it. Great stuff and many thanks for the help and guidence.