libclntsh.so.19.1: broken link

Question

I have a local machine with

• Oracle Linux 7
• Oracle XE 18c (needs max InstantClient 18.5)
• httpd with PHP7.4

I had to downgrade the installed Oracle InstantClient (from 19.x to 18.5) in order to be able to install Oracle XE 18c. Database was then created, and filled with the basic data needed to run my local website. But I still needed the PECL oci8 for it to connect with the DB. I installed that, everything worked fine. Then I powered my machine off.

This morning, I changed some data using both sqldeveloper and sqlplus. No problem with that, either. Then I tried to use my website again, and it couldn't connect to the DB. A look at the error log and some further analysis and reconstruction of what I've done since it worked last made me check if php was running, using php -v.

It returned the following message:

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'oci8.so' (tried: /usr/lib64/php/modules/oci8.so (libclntsh.so.19.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory), /usr/lib64/php/modules/oci8.so.so (/usr/lib64/php/modules/oci8.so.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)) in Unknown on line 0 PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'pdo_oci.so' (tried: /usr/lib64/php/modules/pdo_oci.so (libclntsh.so.19.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory), /usr/lib64/php/modules/pdo_oci.so.so (/usr/lib64/php/modules/pdo_oci.so.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)) in Unknown on line 0 PHP 7.4.28 (cli) (built: Feb 17 2022 21:07:19) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) The PHP Group Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

I uninstalled an reinstalled the whole PHP stuff, making sure the second install has only the right versions. But I still get the same result.

Both oci8.so and pdo_oci.so do exist in the mentioned folders. libclntsh.so.19.1 was missing before, that's true. After reinstalling everything, it was there, but marked as "broken link" (/lib).

How can I fix this?

If you need more information, I'll be glad to provide it.

Thanks!