libffi.so.6: cannot open shared object file

[andy5995]

I have linuxbrew installed on my home partition. I installed Linuxbrew a month ago on Debian 10. Everything was fine. After installing Debian 11 on my computer, I get this whenever I run brew update, upgrade, doctor, or config:

$ brew update
Error: libffi.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory - /home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so
/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/fiddle.rb:2:in `require'
/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/fiddle.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/linkage_checker.rb:7:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/linkage_checker.rb:7:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula.rb:22:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula.rb:22:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula_versions.rb:4:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula_versions.rb:4:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update-report.rb:4:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update-report.rb:4:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils.rb:92:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils.rb:92:in `require?'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/commands.rb:35:in `valid_internal_cmd?'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:92:in `<main>'

fiddle.so seems to exist

$ ls -al ~/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so 
-rwxrwx--- 1 andy andy 174912 Dec 15  2019 /home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so

$ ruby --version
ruby 2.6.0p0 (2018-12-25 revision 66547) [x86_64-linux]
$ which ruby
/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/bin/ruby

[carlocab]

Do you have any other ruby installed other than the one provided by rvm?

[andy5995]

After I first had the problem mentioned above, I installed

# /usr/bin/ruby --version
ruby 2.7.3p183 (2021-04-05 revision 6847ee089d) [x86_64-linux-gnu]

but that didn't help anything. After I got your message, I uninstalled the system ruby and got the same result.

Here's my PATH info

$ echo $PATH
/home/andy/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.6.0/bin:/home/andy/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.6.0@global/bin:/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/bin:/home/andy/local/bin:/home/andy/.local/bin:/home/andy/.cargo/bin:/home/andy/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games:/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin:/home/andy/.rvm/bin

[gromgit]

What does nm /home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so | tail -n 5 output?

[andy5995]

                 U ruby_xrealloc
000000000000b310 d __TMC_END__
0000000000003730 t to_i
0000000000004280 T value_to_generic
0000000000003a90 t with_gvl_callback

[andy5995]

I renamed /home/linuxbrew to /home/linuxbrew.orig and tried to reinstall with /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" The results didn't change:

HEAD is now at d3887df2a Merge pull request #11529 from Homebrew/sorbet-files-update
==> Tapping homebrew/core
remote: Enumerating objects: 1213454, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (277/277), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (140/140), done.
remote: Total 1213454 (delta 176), reused 210 (delta 137), pack-reused 1213177
Receiving objects: 100% (1213454/1213454), 417.15 MiB | 5.29 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (858551/858551), done.
From https://github.com/Homebrew/linuxbrew-core
 * [new branch]              master     -> origin/master
HEAD is now at e54553afa31 intltool: update 0.51.0_3 bottle.
Error: libffi.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory - /home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/x86_64-linux/fiddle.so
/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/fiddle.rb:2:in `require'
/home/andy/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/lib/ruby/2.6.0/fiddle.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/linkage_checker.rb:7:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/linkage_checker.rb:7:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula.rb:22:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula.rb:22:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula_versions.rb:4:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/formula_versions.rb:4:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update-report.rb:4:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update-report.rb:4:in `<top (required)>'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils.rb:92:in `require'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils.rb:92:in `require?'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/commands.rb:35:in `valid_internal_cmd?'
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:92:in `<main>'
Failed during: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew update --force --quiet

[andy5995]

This is a possible demerit of using RVM (or similar version managers) as it is not aware of system changes. The system Ruby would be updated while upgrading the OS, while separate Ruby installs (and others like Python) would require a manual rebuild upon upgrade if any system libraries changed.

@cho-m Yeah, and iirc the only reason I'm using rvm is because a few years ago I did some work on someone's project that required a specific version of ruby, and the docs said to use rvm.

I could probably just blow away the entire ~/.rvm directory without any side effects.

[danielnachun]

I wonder if the whole issue here was that your RVM-installed Ruby 2.6 was incorrectly being used to run Homebrew instead of the portable Ruby 2.6 that we install when using Homebrew on Linux. If it managed to insert itself into the PATH that Homebrew uses to find Ruby 2.6 ahead of our brewed copy of Ruby 2.6, then anything which breaks the RVM-installed Ruby 2.6 will break Homebrew.

@Homebrew/linux how do we make sure we use the brewed Ruby 2.6 instead of a some other one? The whole reason we provide that portable copy of Ruby 2.6 during the initial install is because it is statically linked to all its runtime dependencies and should be unaffected by things like host OS upgrades.

[cho-m]

Wasn't using an existing version-compatible Ruby on PATH the original intention (and installing a portable version only if necessary)?
e.g. Homebrew/brew#7545

I think that once a portable version is installed, it is always used as default:
https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/d3887df2a39d270c7988985c5bf9099c8229aeca/Library/Homebrew/utils/ruby.sh#L99
However, if there is already a version-compatible Ruby available, then the portable Ruby may never be installed.

There appear to be various user manipulatable ways to force the portable Ruby to install (which should allow Homebrew to always use it) like setting HOMEBREW_FORCE_VENDOR_RUBY environment variable, changing PATH, etc.

[danielnachun]

Ah, that would probably explain this! Homebrew finding the RVM installed Ruby 2.6 and using it is probably a feature and not a bug. The upside to preferring a host Ruby install like this is that we don't have to install the vendored ruby if it's unneeded. The downside is that the host Ruby can break, and if it does then Homebrew breaks too.

I wonder if we should use an allowlist of possible directories for a host ruby to avoid picking up RVM installed Ruby. Ruby installed by a package manager is unlikely to have this sort of breakage as the distro maintainers always rebuild packages after version bumps of dependencies. But Ruby installed through RVM won't be rebuilt automatically when one of its dependencies is upgraded, leading to this type of problem as you noted above.

[andy5995]

I'm not familiar with ruby or the homebrew code base, but is there anyway to produce an exit code in a case like that? So at least maybe a message could be displayed to the user suggesting the problem: "You may need to reinstall ruby or change the order of items in PATH..."

[sheeeng]

I experienced the same issue after upgrading from Fedora 35 to Fedora 36.

Purged my .rbenv directory as a workaround.

rm --force --recursive --verbose ~/.rbenv
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv

Also, rbenv-doctor give the following results at this stage.

$ curl -fsSL https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv-installer/raw/main/bin/rbenv-doctor | bash
Checking for `rbenv' in PATH: /home/${USER}/.rbenv/bin/rbenv
Checking for rbenv shims in PATH: OK
Checking `rbenv install' support: not found
Unless you plan to add Ruby versions manually, you should install ruby-build.
Please refer to https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build#installation

Counting installed Ruby versions: none
  There aren't any Ruby versions installed under `/home/${USER}/.rbenv/versions'.
  You can install Ruby versions like so: rbenv install <version>
Checking RubyGems settings: OK
Auditing installed plugins: OK
$ rbenv version 
system
$ ruby --version
ruby 3.1.2p20 (2022-04-12 revision 4491bb740a) [x86_64-linux]

Installing brew at this stage works again.

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
==> Checking for `sudo` access (which may request your password)...
==> This script will install:
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/share/doc/homebrew
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/share/man/man1/brew.1
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/share/zsh/site-functions/_brew
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/etc/bash_completion.d/brew
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew

Press RETURN/ENTER to continue or any other key to abort:
[sudo] password for ${USER}: 
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/chown -R ${USER}:${USER} /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew
==> Downloading and installing Homebrew...
HEAD is now at 87bcd1935 Merge pull request #13271 from Bo98/image-spec-pin
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/portable-ruby/portable-ruby/blobs/sha256:cd7fffb18ef9338baa670fc5e8fce99b0e3cc0f0fd7627bcbb56f3c8d54161d4
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring portable-ruby-2.6.8.x86_64_linux.bottle.tar.gz
==> Installation successful!

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