Qt startup error: symbol lookup error: libQt5XcbQpa.so.5: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Font_Format

Question

First I downloaded the qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.3.run software from the qt official website.

Then I installed qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.3.run file in my rhel 7.4 system using ./qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.3.run command.

After successfully installed the qt software I ran the qtcreator from the terminal by as follows,

[root@localhost bin]# ./qtcreator ./qtcreator: symbol lookup error: /opt/Qt5.12.3/Tools/QtCreator/lib/Qt/plugins/platforms/../../lib/libQt5XcbQpa.so.5: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Font_Format

I got the above highlighted error.
Please guide me to solve the issue.

My System details: [root@localhost bin]# uname -a Linux localhost.localdomain 3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Jul 6 19:56:57 EDT 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Answer 1

I had the same problem with QT 5.13 with CentOS 7; I resolved it by running:

sudo yum update freetype-devel

Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

Answer 2

On RHEL 7.4, the freetype package is freetype-2.4.11-15.el7.x86_64.rpm which defines the symbol FT_Get_X11_Font_Format but not FT_Get_Font_Format:

[root@localhost /]# readelf -s /lib64/libfreetype.so.6 | grep -i font_format
   406: 0000000000020960    43 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT   11 FT_Get_X11_Font_Format

The freetype API has changed so that FT_Get_X11_Font_Format was renamed to FT_Get_Font_Format in version 2.6:

[root@localhost /]# readelf -s /lib64/libfreetype.so.6 | grep -i font_format
   345: 00000000000232a0    43 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT   12 FT_Get_X11_Font_Format
   523: 0000000000023270    43 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT   12 FT_Get_Font_Format

FT_Get_X11_Font_Format is still present for backward compatibility.

Programs that were compiled with freetype >= 2.6 may use the new API and, by doing this, such programs will not work with older versions of freetype.

You can fix this by simply updating freetype and/or freetype-devel which will upgrade to version 2.8 (as of today):

yum update freetype
yum update freetype-devel

If the response of yum update freetype-devel is:

No packages marked for update

Then this means you did not install freetype-devel, thus you only need to update freetype.

If you cannot use yum, you may download freetype-2.8 and upgrade it manually:

rpm -Uvh freetype-2.8-12.el7.x86_64.rpm