No source file for Netaccel_link error on running program - ocaml

Question

I have an OCaml program that worked fine on Ubuntu 16 but when recompiled and run on Ubuntu 20 I get the following error:-
$ ocamldebug ./linearizer
OCaml Debugger version 4.08.1
(ocd) r
Loading program... done.
Time: 89534
Program end.
Uncaught exception: Sys_error "Illegal seek"
(ocd) b
Time: 89533 - pc: 624888 - module Netaccel_link
No source file for Netaccel_link.
I thought this was due to missing dev libraries but:-
$ sudo apt install libocamlnet-ocaml-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libocamlnet-ocaml-dev is already the newest version (4.1.6-1build6).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
What setup step am I missing on Ubuntu 20?

Answer 1

This looks like a regression bug in libocamlnet and you should report an issue there or, I am a bit pessimistic that you will get any response, you can try to debug the issue yourself.
The problem that you are facing has nothing to do with missing libraries (they will be reported during installation or, if the package is broken, end up in linker errors). It may result, however, from some misconfiguration of the system. If that is true, then you're lucky as you can fix it yourself.
I will give you some advice that might help you in debugging this issue. For more, please try using discuss.ocaml.org as a more suitable media (SO doesn't favor this kind of a discussion and we might get deleted by admins).
The illegal seek exception is thrown when the seek operation is applied on a non-regular file, aka ESPIPE Unix error. So check your inputs. It could be that what was previously regarded as a file in Ubuntu is now a pipe or a socket.
Try to use ltrace or strace to pinpoint the culprit e.g.,
ltrace ./linearizer
or, if it overwhelms you, try strace
strace ./linearizer
Instead of using ocamldebug you can use plain gdb. You can use gdb's interfaces to provide the path to the source code (though most likely it won't work since ocamlnet is not compiled with debug information). I believe that it will give you a more meaningful backtrace.
Instead of using the system installation try using opam. Install your dependencies with opam and try older versions as well as newer versions of the OCaml compiler. Also, try different versions of ocamlnet. Ideally, try to reproduce the environment that used to work for you.
When nothing else works, you can use objdump -d and look at the disassembly of your binary. OCaml is using a pretty readable and intuitive name mangling scheme (<module_name>__<function_name>_<uid>), so you can easily find the source code (search for <module_name>.ml file and look for the <function_name> there)
Finally, just use docker or any other container to run your application. Consider switching from ocamlnet to something more modern and supported.