Zypper commands failing after patching in SLES 15sp5 with protobuf error

This document (000021477) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5
libzypp < 17.35.8

Situation

After patching or migration, some zypper components do not update in line with the rest of the stack, resulting in errors anytime a zypper command is run.

The error message contains strings both 'google' and 'protobuf' similar (if not identical) to the following:

zypper: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib64/libzypp.so.1734: undefined symbol:_ZN6google8protobuf8internal14UntypedMapBase12TransferTreeEPN4absl12lts_202401169btree_mapINS1_10VariantKeyEPNS1_8NodeBaseESt4lessIS6_ENS1_12MapAllocatorISt4pairIKS6_S8_EEEEEPFS6_S8_E

Resolution

1) Login to the SUSE Customer Center (SCC) and go to the SCC patch search (https://scc.suse.com/patches#!/)

Search for : SUSE-SLE-Module-Basesystem-15-SP5-2024-3178
Product : Basesystem Module
Version : 15 SP5
Arch : <this is based on the Architecture of your system> Example: x86_64

Select found patch.

Download below mentioned RPMs to the system:

libsolv-tools-0.7.30-150400.3.27.2.x86_64.rpm
libsolv-tools-base-0.7.30-150400.3.27.2.x86_64.rpm
libyui16-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libyui-ncurses16-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libyui-ncurses-pkg16-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libyui-ncurses-tools-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libyui-qt16-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libyui-qt-graph16-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
libzypp-17.35.8-150500.6.13.1.x86_64.rpm
python3-solv-0.7.30-150400.3.27.2.x86_64.rpm
python3-zypp-plugin-0.6.4-150400.13.4.1.noarch.rpm
ruby-solv-0.7.30-150400.3.27.2.x86_64.rpm
yast2-pkg-bindings-4.5.3-150500.3.10.1.x86_64.rpm
zypper-1.14.76-150500.6.6.15.x86_64.rpm
zypper-log-1.14.76-150500.6.6.15.noarch.rpm
zypper-needs-restarting-1.14.76-150500.6.6.15.noarch.rpm

2) Install the packages using the RPM command:

#> rpm -Uhv /path/to/rpms/*.rpm

3) Test any zypper command for resolution:

#> zypper refresh

Cause

An update to zypper's stack did not trigger an update to all packages that zypper relies on, resulting in a loss of symbol tables and then library conflicts that breaks zypper and requires manual intervention.

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.