#2864·ImHex

[Bug] ImHex Arch package fails to run

Author: JazzinghenCreated Aug 25, 2026Updated Aug 25, 2026
Labelsbug

Operating System

Linux

What's the issue you encountered?

Since a few days ago it fails to start with the following error message:

imhex: error while loading shared libraries: libmbedtls.so.21: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I am using the AUR package imhex-bin, which downloads the v1.38.1 package from the repository and installs it.

Here is the output of ls -lah /usr/lib/libmbedtls*

$ ls -lah /usr/lib/libmbedtls*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 553K Aug 15 04:22 /usr/lib/libmbedtls.a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 Aug 15 04:22 /usr/lib/libmbedtls.so -> libmbedtls.so.23
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 307K Aug 15 04:22 /usr/lib/libmbedtls.so.4.2.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   19 Aug 15 04:22 /usr/lib/libmbedtls.so.23 -> libmbedtls.so.4.2.0

So probably there has been an update on 2026/08/15 (or earlier, I don't update every day), which broke this dependency.

I have filed a report to the AUR package, but maybe this is something that might need to be handled also in the project repository.

How can the issue be reproduced?

  • Have an updated Arch Linux installation
  • Install ImHex via AUR using the imhex-bin package (e.g. paru imhex-bin)
  • Execute ImHex on the terminal (if using the desktop link nothing happens)

ImHex Version

1.38.1

ImHex Build Type

  • Nightly or built from sources

Installation type

imhex-bin via AUR (uses the pre-built binary imhex-1.38.1-ArchLinux-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst from the release page)

Additional context?

Here is the information of both imhex-bin and mbedtls:

$ pacman -Qi imhex-bin
Name            : imhex-bin
Version         : 1.38.1-1
Description     : A Hex Editor for Reverse Engineers, Programmers and people who value their retinas when working at 3 AM.
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex
Licenses        : GPL2
Groups          : None
Provides        : imhex
Depends On      : glfw  mbedtls  fontconfig  freetype2  libglvnd  dbus  gtk3  curl  fmt  yara  zlib  bzip2  xz  zstd  libssh2
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : imhex
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 59,51 MiB
Packager        : Unknown Packager
Build Date      : 2026-01-14T15:51:11 JST
Install Date    : 2026-01-14T15:52:15 JST
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : None

$ pacman -Qi mbedtls
Name            : mbedtls
Version         : 4.2.0-1
Description     : An open source, portable, easy to use, readable and flexible TLS library
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://tls.mbed.org
Licenses        : Apache-2.0
Groups          : None
Provides        : libmbedcrypto.so=2-64  libmbedtls.so=23-64  libmbedx509.so=9-64  libtfpsacrypto.so=2-64  polarssl
Depends On      : glibc  sh
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : imhex-bin
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : polarssl
Replaces        : polarssl
Installed Size  : 6,55 MiB
Packager        : Maxime Gauduin <[email protected]>
Build Date      : 2026-08-15T04:22:42 JST
Install Date    : 2026-08-17T11:30:40 JST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature