bug seemed close at first to bug 81605 but I'm running x86 not amd64 and -fPIC is not involved. will try to downgrade to 0.57 and see if it has any effect I must specify I don't have vpopmail or any MTA installed. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge courier-imap 2. pull in dependency courier-authlib 3. fail at compiling courier-authlib Actual Results: compiling fails with following error message: /usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-nm: libmisc.a: File format not recognized /usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-nm: libmisc.a: File format not recognized /usr/lib/libshadow.a: member /usr/lib/libshadow.a(libmisc.a) in archive is not an object collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[2]: *** [libauthpam.la] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/courier-authlib-0.57-r1/work/courier-authlib-0.57' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/courier-authlib-0.57-r1/work/courier-authlib-0.57' make: *** [all] Error 2 !!! ERROR: net-libs/courier-authlib-0.57-r1 failed. !!! Function src_compile, Line 101, Exitcode 2 !!! Compile problem Expected Results: compile correctly Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r1, 2.6.11-gentoo-r3 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.11-gentoo-r3 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.11 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r10 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.18-r1 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.lug.ro/gentoo http://ftp.lug.ro/gentoo/" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 berkdb bitmap-fonts crypt cups eds emboss encode foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 java jpeg junit ldap libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mysql ncurses nls pam pdflib perl png postgres python qt quicktime readline ruby sdl snmp spell ssl svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbis xml2 xmms xv zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Try re-emerge shadow, as current stable version does not bring libshadow/libmisc anymore.
re-emerging shadow did it. I think it can be closed now. Thanks for the answer.
*** Bug 118093 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 119652 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***