Wolfram Mathematica after upgrade to Ubuntu 19.04: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

I have recently upgraded my desktop PC from Ubuntu 18.10 to 19.04. Now I am getting the following error when I try to start ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶a̶m̶s̶ Wolfram Mathematica 11.3:

symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

I tried to check this command:

$ ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fffbd1e9000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007f723c2e6000)
libexpat.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00007f723c2a9000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f723c2a0000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f723c27f000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f723c094000)
libpng16.so.16 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng16.so.16 (0x00007f723c05d000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f723c03f000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f723c401000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f723bef1000)

But I am not that advanced linux user to understand what all these things mean.

Has anyone seen this problem?

As noticed by @steeldriver, the problem is specific to Wolfram Mathematica. I solved the issue by following some of the steps from this question: Can't launch Mathematica 11 on Fedora 29. For the record, I write down here what I did.

Go to MathematicaInstallationDirectory/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64/ (for me it is /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.3/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64) and run the following commands:

sudo mv libfreetype.so.6 libfreetype.so.6.bak
sudo mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.bak

Just to test, I tried to start Mathematica right after renaming the first file, libfreetype.so.6. It did not work and I got the following error:

$ mathematica 
/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.3/SystemFiles/FrontEnd/Binaries/Linux-x86-64/Mathematica: /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.3/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64/libz.so.1: version `ZLIB_1.2.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng16.so.16)

But after renaming the second file, everything works fine.

NB. The link provided above has more information on other potentially helpful steps.

I also updated my Ubuntu from 18.10 to 19.04 and got the same issue. I managed to repair that thanks to some reading (among which @Yauhen's). Here are the command lines I used:

cd /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.3/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64/
sudo mv libfreetype.so.6 libfreetype.so.6.bak
sudo mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.bak

cd
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install
sudo dpkg --configure -a

et voilà :)

On 5.13.13-arch1-1 (updated September 1 2021) I had same problem.

After searching and not finding a solution, I copied the previous versions of libz and libfreetype from a working installation of Mathematica and pasted them into Mathematica-FOLDER/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64.

Now Mathematica works again.

I have provided the two libraries on this Google drive share.

Answers:

Are the two libraries on the Google drive from your previous versions of libz and libfreetype?

The files are libfreetype.so.6.14.4 and libz.so.1.2.11 I extracted from /usr/lib64/

Somehow I don't feel comfortable loading binary files from someone's Google Drive... O.o

Of course, you could extract of a previous version of archlinux or search on web for these libraries.

What would be more useful is the version compatibility match to be listed. What were/are the versions of the libz and libfreetype, and what is the version of Mathematica, with which they are compatible. Also, what were the versions fo the libraries that were incompatible? Please edit your answer and add that information, if you can. Thanks.

libfreetype.so.6.14.4 and libz.so.1.2.11 Thank you I hope these answers help to solve problems.