# Libreadline6 Error

**URL:** <https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549>\
**Category:** Integrating mothur with other programs\
**Created:** [June 1, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549 "2020-06-01T18:12:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![morinajc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@morinajc](https://forum.mothur.org/u/morinajc)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549/1 "2020-06-01T18:12:28Z")

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I am trying to run Mothur in an EC2 instance (Ubuntu18.04.2), but when I try to run it I receive this error: error while loading shared libraries: libreadline.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Things i’ve tried

1. sudo apt-get install libreadline6 libreadline6-dev which returns:

Note, selecting ‘libreadline-dev’ instead of ‘libreadline6-dev’  
Package libreadline6 is not available, but is referred to by another package.This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source  
E: Package ‘libreadline6’ has no installation candidate

1. ([https://mothur.org/wiki/how\_to\_resolve\_readline\_issues/](https://mothur.org/wiki/how_to_resolve_readline_issues/)) yum search readline which returns:

Warning: No matches found for: readline  
No Matches found

This problem was addressed here ([https://github.com/mothur/mothur/issues/571](https://github.com/mothur/mothur/issues/571)), and I have downloaded libreadline6, but do not know how to manually install into Ubuntu. Any adivce would be much appreciated!

If this is helpful, apt-file search readline/readline.h returns libreadline-dev: /usr/include/readline/readline.h libreadline-gplv2-dev: /usr/include/readline/readline.h

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![morinajc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@morinajc](https://forum.mothur.org/u/morinajc)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549/2 "2020-06-01T18:21:32Z")

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1.Download the missing readline ([https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libreadline6](https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libreadline6))  
2.scp the file into your instance  
3.sudo dpkg -i /path/to/deb/file

Worked for me!

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**Author:** ![pschloss](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.mothur.org/pschloss/32/4_2.png) [@pschloss](https://forum.mothur.org/u/pschloss)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2020, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549/3 "2020-06-02T12:22:19Z")

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Glad things worked out for you!  
Pat

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**Author:** ![system](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.mothur.org/system/32/2_2.png) [@system](https://forum.mothur.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/libreadline6-error/20549/4 "2020-06-12T12:22:21Z")

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