GLIBC_2.29' not found on linux

[jlongster]

Issue Details

• Electron Version: 5.0.0
• Operating System: LTS version of Ubuntu (18.04) (and other various versions)
• Last Known Working Electron version:: none

Expected Behavior

I just released a Linux version of my app and several users have reported that on launch it fails with the error GLIBC_2.29' not found.

Actual Behavior

App should launch

To Reproduce

You can probably package up Electron 5.0.0 and try to run an AppImage on linux and you'll see it. I gave out a linux build at 4.* before and I think it also had the same issue?

I feel like this might be a simple issue: the latest electron versions require glibc 2.29 and many linux distros aren't up-to-date with that yet. If so, I would have expected to see many other issues reported, because I've had many users complain about this (see https://www.reddit.com/r/actualbudget/comments/bghvfg/any_plans_for_a_linux_client_in_the_future/). Am I doing something wrong?

[codebytere]

Closing as duplicate of #16205

[jlongster]

Can somebody explain the issue a little further? The linked issue only has glibc in common - and it's talking about a different glibc version. Are each chrome versions pinned to a specific glibc version, so each electron is as well? How come my users can run the latest Chrome but not my app built on Electron 5.0.0?

[wodin]

FYI it works for me on Ubuntu MATE 18.04 (x86_64) (which shares most packages with Ubuntu 18.04) using glibc 2.29-0ubuntu2.

EDIT: Sorry, my mistake! That was on 19.04. 18.04 has glibc 2.27-3ubuntu.

[inukshuk]

Electron itself should work fine on Ubuntu 18. Just tested this on Ubuntu 16 GLIBC 2.23 which we're using for Linux builds.

I would guess the issue here is really a native module like SQLite. That's the reason we're using and old Ubuntu image to create the builds, because if you compile a native module it will be linked against your local libc version. It should be possible to keep around an older libc and link to it specifically, but using a sufficiently old distro should work also. In my experience, when we shipped builds I had compiled on Arch Linux we would get frequent reports like the one above ; ever since using Ubuntu 16 all our Linux users seem to be covered.

[jlongster]

Thank you @wodin and @inukshuk. You are absolutely correct. Now that I look deeper into the error I see that it is coming from the sqlite3 module I'm using. I will setup an older image so that it links in an older glibc version. Sorry for thinking it was electron.

[codebytere]

@jlongster @inukshuk i'm glad y'all figured this out! if something else arises please @ me and we can re-open and keep looking :)

[nhandl3]

@jlongster I have the same problem with grpc native module. Because I use electron-rebuild, I think the tool affects the version of GLIBC. My Ubuntu has GLIBC 2.30.

Could you solve your issue with sqlite3?

[LuigiCerone]

@nhandl3 Were you able to fix it?