Issue while launching the Playdate simulator on Ubuntu 24.04

SDK Get Help
,
1

I have recently installed Ubuntu 24.04.

I have the SDK configured, when trying to run the Playdate Simulator I receive the following error:

PlaydateSimulator: error while loading shared libraries: libwebkit2gtk-4.0.so.37: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

My understanding here is that the simulator has a dependency which Ubuntu can no longer support (when running 24.04).

I believe a version of the package is available, just not the one required by the simulator.

Has anyone else seen this issue, running the latest Ubuntu or any previous versions?

Is this package upgradeable, or is it likely to be fixed and determined by the requirements of the OS?

If it can be upgraded, has anyone completed that process?

Is it likely that the SDK needs to be updated to support the version available in Ubuntu 24.04?

2

Did you try installing the library with apt? Something like:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37
3

Hi @Daeke!

I tried running:

sudo apt-get install libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37

Which gave:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37'

Running the following command, to check what is available:

apt-cache search libwebkit

Returns:

libwebkit2gtk-4.0-doc - WebKitGTK documentation (transitional dummy package)
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 - Web content engine library for GTK
libwebkitgtk-6.0-4 - Web content engine library for GTK
libwebkitgtk-doc - Web content engine library for GTK - documentation
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev - Web content engine library for GTK - development files
libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev - Web content engine library for GTK - development files

main, universe, restricted and multiverse repositories are enabled.

Unsure if I need to run an alternative command, or add a new repository?

Or if there is a specific reason why that version is not returning while running 24.04?

4

Pretty sure it won't work but maybe you can try installing libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 ?

5

I have found what I think is a useful resource online which let's us view packages available across different versions of Ubuntu:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/

Noble is the codename for 24.04:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/

A search across all versions for "libwebkit2gt":
https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=libwebkit2gt&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all

  • "libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37" doesn't have a libs entry for noble.
  • "libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0" does have a libs entry for noble.

I guess this suggests that the older version needed by the SDK is not available, or at least not officially supported for 24.04?

6

FYI:

I will carry on investigating this issue but my initial thoughts are that this is potentially a bug or feature request.

The SDK may need to be updated to support the more recent version of the package included in Ubuntu 24.04.

I have created a bug report here:
https://devforum.play.date/t/simulator-support-for-ubuntu-24-04/

7

Hi Dean,
I ran into the same issue (on Xubuntu 24.04) and did the following:

sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main"
sudo apt update 
sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev

Now the Playdate SDK is working OK on my computer.
Hope it helps,

2 Likes
8

Brilliant, thanks!

Tried this and it works on Ubuntu, the simulator starts without issue.

When running the install a number of packages were installed or updated.

Do you forsee any issues with those updates?

Or generally, when running these versions side-by side?

Thanks again!

9

Glad it helped you !

Up to this day I had no issue using this old repo.

10

I had this same problem on Ubuntu 24.04 Noble and adding the old 22.04 Jammy repo allowed me to download the missing dependency.

However this bothered me as having the two separate repos seem like not a good idea. After a bit of research, it seems other software was having a similar problem and this was a common workaround. I found this comment which supports my concern that it potentially could cause problems, so I follow they're recommendation and removed the Jammy repo after installing libwebkit2gtk.

I think a proper fix is for Panic to release a new Mirror update that targets the newest version of libwebkit2gtk?

11

I had the same problem.
It appeared I had some snap packages containing the libs the Simulator needed. Not very robust (especially if you consider that snap is a black box to me...), but safer than the 2 repos approach.
I ended up with a

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/x86_64-linux-gnu/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/snap/gnome-42-2204/172/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/:/snap/core22/1722/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
12

In theory, this should get it going.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/x86_64-linux-gnu/lib:/snap/gnome-42-2204/current/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/:/snap/core22/current/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH bin/PlaydateSimulator

However I get:

[1] 619360 segmentation fault (core dumped) LD_LIBRARY_PATH= bin/PlaydateSimulator