19

So, I installed the Android SDK, Eclipse, and the ADT. Upon firing up Eclipse the first time after setting up the ADT, this error popped up:

[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] /home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] 'adb version' failed!
/home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] Failed to parse the output of 'adb version':
Standard Output was:

Error Output was:
/home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] /home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] 'adb version' failed!
/home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[2012-05-29 12:11:06 - adb] Failed to parse the output of 'adb version':
Standard Output was:

Error Output was:
/home/drsmith/Downloads/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I'm not quite sure how this is. Feels weird that there's a missing library there. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04. No adb is a pretty big blow as an Android developer. How do I fix?

7 Answers 7

32

You need library ncurses 32 bit version installed in your system

sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386

In addition to libncurses5, you may require libstdc++6.

sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386

With the command

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

You install a lot of libraries that is not useful to solve your problem.

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    thank you so much for de libncurses5:i386 tip. ia32-libs is not a good solution and screw my whole system
    – BiAiB
    Sep 26, 2012 at 19:51
21

Android SDK platform tools requires ia32-libs, which itself is a big package of libraries:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

UPDATE:

Below are the latest instructions from Google on how to install Android SDK library dependencies:

If you are running a 64-bit distribution on your development machine, you need to install additional packages first. For Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) and above, install the libncurses5:i386, libstdc++6:i386, and zlib1g:i386 packages using apt-get:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 zlib1g:i386

For earlier versions of Ubuntu, install the ia32-libs package using apt-get:

apt-get install ia32-libs
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  • 1
    And yes, it includes libncurses as well. May 29, 2012 at 20:24
  • Can't believe I missed that. They state it in the set-up guide that's out of date and still says Eclipse isn't in the official repository.
    – MowDownJoe
    May 29, 2012 at 22:18
  • ia32-libs is no longer supported (in Ubuntu 14.04). The following command helped me: apt-get install libstdc++6:i386
    – Enno
    Mar 2, 2015 at 15:01
1

If libncurses is not installed then install it and try again.

sudo apt-get install libncurses5
2
  • Tried apt-get install libncurses. Apt-get didn't see anything in the repository.
    – MowDownJoe
    May 29, 2012 at 21:45
  • This is probably not the problem...but did you make sure to run sudo apt-get update first? Jun 4, 2012 at 4:58
1

I am running Ubuntu 13.10 and I was having the same problem. I tried adding ia32libs and it didn't recognize the repo, and recommended a couple others like lib32z1. Neither worked. Then I saw this comment,

You need library ncurses 32 bit version installed in your system

sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386

In addition to libncurses5, you may require libstdc++6.

sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386

This worked great for me. :)

0
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Solved my problem. This libraries collection can be useful for a lot of developer's programs also.

0

For me adb was missing regardless of all activities.

Then I noticed useful hint shown in the terminal, which I've tried:

sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb

After that, adb command was installed and now I can install on emulated devices whatever I want.

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