wink complains about not finding libexpat.so.0

Confirmed this bug under Hardy Heron alpha release. It appears that wink was compiled/linked against an old libexpat version, prior to the ABI change in expat.

Wink will need to be rebuilt against libexpat.so.1 for the new ABI changes (assuming wink actually needs to be linked against libexpat at all).

Do not create a soft link (ln -s) from the newer expat ABI to the old one (libexpat.so.1 -> libexpat.so.0), as this will produce unexpected/unpredictable behaviour in the application. In addition, there could be other apps with similar problems, and the soft link will mask those and could cause major issues on your system.

The only way to correctly fix this is an updated package. The maintainer will need to release an updated version to correct this behaviour.

Or, if they cannot update the package, there would need to be a expat compatibility package installed (I believe SuSE has one called expat-compat), which does not appear to be in the package list for Hardy Heron.

The fact that 8.04 does not ship libexpat.so.0 gratuitously breaks binary compatibility with previous Ubuntu releases. I have filed bug #218963 on this.

hiyas i make run wink in hardy heron and is easy onli you need go to /usr/lib and copy the file libexpat.so in the same folder and then rename the file to libexpat.so.0 next copy this file libexpat.so.0 to /usr/lib/wink delete the file libexpat.so.0 in wink directory and paste the other one and naw run wink and ready to make tutorials have fun sorry my english is to bad i speak spanish

I just copied all the libexpat.so files from /usr/lib/ on ubuntu 7.10 to the /usr/lib/ folder on 8.04
Some of the names changed to libexpat.so.1.0.0 or something like that.
I just changed them back to libexpat.so.0

Started right up

I just looked at the files again.
I think libexpat.so.0 on 7.10 was just a link to libexpat.so.1
I thought the name changed, sorry
Anyway, I didn't have to move any files to the /usr/lib/wink folder.
i just left them in /usr/lib

What is the difference? and is one way more stable / better / worse than the other?

Copying, moving and renaming libraries is bad. You can cause other applications to break.

The correct fix is for the wink package to be rebuilt against the newer libexpat library. An alternate fix would be for a compatibility package to be provided in Hardy Heron.

If anyone follows the above advice, be warned you are creating a potential for other programs to exhibit problems which are not going to technically be bugs. For example, if a KDE or Gnome application actually expects the newer libexpat, and you have made changes to that library, you can cause crashes, corrupted information, etc. Similarly, if you use the newer libexpat (by renaming or symlinking) for wink, it will expect the internal data structure to be a certain way, and this could cause problems randomly.

When a library changes major version number (e.g. from 0.x.x to 1.x.x) this generally means that the library may not be backwards compatible. Usually there are changes to the internal data structures, that are not immediately evident to the end user, but could cause issues if the program isn't updated to use the new libraries properly.

 confirm the bug (ubuntu 8.04)
I'm ok makin a copy isn't a good solution but an emergency solution before a patch will correct this bug

sudo ln -s libexpat.so.1 libexpar.so.0

can someone let me know when this gets fixed. I really miss wink. Used to work in 7.10 prior to making the change to version 8.04,

wink fixed in Debian with 1.5.1060-5.

This bug was fixed in the package wink - 1.5.1060-5ubuntu1

---------------
wink (1.5.1060-5ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low

  * debian/rules:
    - Call dh_shlibdeps with -l$(CURDIR)/debian/wink/usr/lib/wink to
      link against libexpat.so.0, linked to libexpat.so.1 (LP: #218963).
  * debian/script/wink.sh
    - Export LD_LIBRARY_PATH to launch wink correctly (LP: #185868).
  * debian/control:
    - Update Maintainer field as per spec.

 -- Luca Falavigna <email address hidden> Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:35:25 +0200

The source from:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+source/wink/1.5.1060-5ubuntu1

is only for x86. Anyone know of a build that fixes this problem for x86_64?

wink is available for i386 architecture only (no sources, just binary objects).

when is this going to be fixed?!??

i tried the link "1.5.1060-5ubuntu1" but that didn't work....
can wink be downloaded so i can compile it myself?

help!!! i need wink (without risking other application crashes) or my boss will have a hissy fit

A fixed package is available in hardy-proposed, see bug #218963 for the details.

>>This bug was fixed in the package wink - 1.5.1060-5ubuntu1
"aptitude search wink" results in nothing. I can't find that package on the web either.

Wink doesn't seem to be the best solution for desktop recording anyway.
Most other capture applications don't work either (e.g. Istanbul).

Eventually, I found (gtk-)recordmydesktop in the repository.

I think the only disadvantage should be that gtk-recordmydesktop defaults to OGG while wink can write Flash files directly.

However, the advantage is that it is not closed-source freeware software where you have to rely on the author's time and mercy. (They should really charge money for wink and fix things immediately.)