diff --git a/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/package.mk b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/package.mk
index 07e8883453..0d603a0152 100644
--- a/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/package.mk
+++ b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/package.mk
@@ -153,6 +153,12 @@ EOF
   ### Take a backup of the system configuration on shutdown
   enable_service save-sysconfig.service
 
+  ### Expose PortMaster compat libs (/usr/lib/compat) in the default
+  ### linker path. No ld.so.cache ships, so love_11.5 et al. fail on
+  ### libtheoradec.so.1 unless it is symlinked into /usr/lib (see
+  ### docs/PortMaster_CFW.md and the archr-compat-symlinks script).
+  enable_service archr-compat-libs.service
+
   ### System locale. glibc/package.mk only generates en_US.UTF-8; without
   ### this file LANG stays empty and every shell falls back to POSIX,
   ### which breaks UTF-8 input, pacman messages and emulator menus.
diff --git a/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/sources/scripts/archr-compat-symlinks b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/sources/scripts/archr-compat-symlinks
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f579c3cb1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/sources/scripts/archr-compat-symlinks
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+#
+# archr-compat-symlinks: expose the PortMaster compat libraries
+# (/usr/lib/compat/*.so*, the older Debian-11-era SONAMEs that ports and
+# their runtimes link against) in the default linker search path.
+#
+# ArchR keeps these libs under /usr/lib/compat to stay out of the base
+# system, but the image ships no ld.so.cache: the dynamic linker only
+# searches the hardcoded /usr/lib + /lib plus LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so
+# /usr/lib/compat is invisible to anything that does not explicitly
+# prepend it. PortMaster runtimes such as love_11.5 link
+# libtheoradec.so.1 as a normal system library and die with
+# "cannot open shared object file: libtheoradec.so.1" when it lives only
+# under compat. docs/PortMaster_CFW.md is explicit: "add these older .so
+# symlinks alongside [the newer versions]" and "Keep [libtheoradec] at
+# standard versions."
+#
+# We therefore symlink each compat lib into /usr/lib, but ONLY when the
+# base system does not already provide that exact SONAME, so we never
+# shadow a real system library (e.g. libogg.so.0, libvorbis.so.0).
+#
+# Idempotent: the `[ -e ]` guard skips anything already present, so it is
+# safe to run every boot. The rootfs is writable ext4, so the links
+# persist and later boots are no-ops.
+
+link_dir() {
+  local compat="$1" libdir="$2" n=0 f base
+  [ -d "${compat}" ] || return 0
+  for f in "${compat}"/*.so*; do
+    [ -e "${f}" ] || continue
+    base="${f##*/}"
+    if [ ! -e "${libdir}/${base}" ]; then
+      ln -sf "compat/${base}" "${libdir}/${base}" && n=$((n + 1))
+    fi
+  done
+  echo "${n}"
+}
+
+created=$(link_dir /usr/lib/compat /usr/lib)
+# armhf / 32-bit ports use the lib32 tree when present.
+created32=$(link_dir /usr/lib32/compat /usr/lib32)
+
+echo "archr-compat-symlinks: linked ${created:-0} (lib) + ${created32:-0} (lib32) compat SONAMEs into the default path"
+exit 0
diff --git a/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/system.d/archr-compat-libs.service b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/system.d/archr-compat-libs.service
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..699c821e3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/projects/ArchR/packages/archr/system.d/archr-compat-libs.service
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+[Unit]
+Description=ArchR PortMaster compat library symlinks
+# Ports are launched from EmulationStation, which archr-autostart.service
+# brings up; ordering before it guarantees the compat SONAMEs are linked
+# into /usr/lib before any port (or its runtime) can dlopen them.
+Before=archr-autostart.service
+After=systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
+
+[Service]
+Type=oneshot
+ExecStart=/usr/bin/archr-compat-symlinks
+RemainAfterExit=yes
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=archr.target