When I try to start Amarok 1.4 on Ubuntu Dapper Drake from the applications menu, nothing happens.  However if I run amarok as a command, I get the following error message:

amarok: error while loading shared libraries: libkdecore.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

As Amarok 1.4 worked last night, I assume that a required file has been corrupted or deleted.  However I have no idea how to restore it.  I have already tried removing and restoring amarok with apt-get to no avail.  Does anyone know how I can restore Amarok to full working order?

Cheers. 

looks like an update (either for amarok or kde) has been installed. I'd suggest to search for libkdecore, then create a symbolic link to that missing file:

alanceil@rivendell:23:57:0:~/jana2test/html/pics/screens> locate libkdecore
/usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.so.4
/usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.so.4.2.0
/usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.la
/usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.so
/usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.so.4
/usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.so.4.2.0
/usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.la
/usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.so
alanceil@rivendell:00:08:0:~/jana2test/html/pics/screens> sudo ln -s /usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.so.4 /usr/kde/3.5/lib/libkdecore.4

(you'll need to adapt the command to your system, of course )

Excellent - thank you.  That did the trick.