error while loading shared libraries: libpoppler.so.58: cannot open shared object file

Question

I compiled and install poppler-0.39.0 as per the instruction. By default header files went int \usr\local\include and lib files went into \usr\local\lib. pdftohtml is installed in \usr\local\bin.

Now when I tried to run pdftohtml it gives following error.

pdftohtml: error while loading shared libraries: libpoppler.so.58: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. 

Though libpoppler.so.58 is present in \usr\local\lib. Please help me.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem on Ubuntu 18.04. After installation I got this error:

error while loading shared libraries: libpoppler.so.90: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

It turned out it was installed to /usr/local/lib:

Install the project...
-- Install configuration: "RelWithDebInfo"
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/libpoppler.so.90.0.0
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/libpoppler.so.90
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/libpoppler.so
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler.pc
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler-splash.pc
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler-qt5.pc
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler-glib.pc
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler-cairo.pc
-- Installing: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/poppler-cpp.pc

but the system wasn't looking there.

To check if /usr/local/lib is in the default directories to search you can take a look at /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc.conf.

If not already there you can add: /usr/local/lib

In my case this was already the case:

# libc default configuration
/usr/local/lib

But the cache at /etc/ld.so.cache wasn't updated.

To do so run (as root / sudo):

ldconfig

Solved the problem for me. Hope this may be helpful for someone!

Answer 2

Just had this very same error message displayed in an Amazon Linux 64 bits box. I guess pdftotext was looking for libpoppler.so.58 inside /usr/lib64/ but the lib was located on /usr/lib

So i ran the following commands (as superuser):

$ cp /usr/lib/libpoppler.so.58.0.0 /usr/lib64

$ ldconfig

You may have to replace directories to make that fit your case. I'm not sure if it's the most correct workaround but it worked.