Ubuntu and Skype

Skype not loading in Ubuntu 11.10 (Error loading libXss)

So it turns out that upgrading to Oneiric Ocelot (Ubuntu 11.10) causes the latest version of Skype to die a painful death. This short little article shows how to get it back functioning again.

So it turns out that upgrading to the latest release of Ubuntu, Oneiric Ocelot (Ubuntu 11.10, 64Bit) the latest version of Skype dies a painful death. Specifically it comes up with this error if launched through the CLI:

error while loading shared libraries: libXss.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Trying to open Skype through the desktop environment just did nothing. The way I managed to get my beloved VOIP back and running was to run the following code in terminal:

sudo apt-get install libxss1:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386 libqt4-core:i386 libqt4-gui:i386

Double clicking the old skype icon and you should hopefully see Skype 2.2.0.35 (BETA) version launch as good as new! Hope it helps!

Updated November 27th 2011: It turns out that this article on the libXss error for Skype is one of my most popular via Google and Bing. I would greatly appreciate if people could drop a quick message below if its help, or if it didn’t solve the problem, that way I can modify or improve it to help further.

 

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17 thoughts on “Skype not loading in Ubuntu 11.10 (Error loading libXss)

    1. Glad you found the article useful – if you update Ubuntu again (major release next month) then you may need to visit this page again. Thanks for the feedback, its good to know these articles benefit others.

    1. Thanks for the feedback Jimmy, really glad it helped. How long have you been on Mint, I literally switched back to Ubuntu just this week.

  1. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Tried the same thing (mostly) from other websites. Got me half way there. This got me all the way there! Thanks!

  2. I was missing libXv.so.1, and this fixed it:
    sudo aptitude install libxss1:i386 libqtcore4:i386 libqt4-dbus:i386 libasound2:i386 libxv1:i386 libsm6:i386 libxi6:i386 libXrender1:i386 libxrandr2:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libfontconfig1:i386

    1. I think it’s because after you upgrade yours distributive, it’s didn’t upgrade packages with another architechture than yours system

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