octave 3.2.4 crashes in imwrite function (ubuntu 12.04)

[Mök Mökson]

Transcript of short octave session that reproduces the crash, followed by package version information:

$ octave
GNU Octave, version 3.2.4
Copyright (C) 2009 John W. Eaton and others.
This is free software; see the source code for copying conditions.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. For details, type `warranty'.

Octave was configured for "x86_64-pc-linux-gnu".

Additional information about Octave is available at http://www.octave.org.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For more information, visit http://www.octave.org/help-wanted.html

Report bugs to <email address hidden> (but first, please read
http://www.octave.org/bugs.html to learn how to write a helpful report).

For information about changes from previous versions, type `news'.

octave:1> rand('seed',1);
octave:2> image = floor(rand(2376,861,3)*256);
octave:3> imwrite(image, 'image.png');
octave: magick/semaphore.c:525: LockSemaphoreInfo: Assertion `semaphore_info != (SemaphoreInfo *) ((void *)0)' failed.
panic: Aborted -- stopping myself...
attempting to save variables to `octave-core'...
save to `octave-core' complete
Aborted (core dumped)

$ apt-cache policy octave3.2
octave3.2:
  Installed: 3.2.4-12
  Candidate: 3.2.4-12
  Version table:
 *** 3.2.4-12 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Aditya V (kroq-gar78)]

After a little searching and a slight scan of the message, could this bug be similar to this? http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/octave-bug-tracker/2010-10/msg00184.html

[Mike Miller (mtmiller)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, I am closing it because the bug has been fixed in the latest development version of Ubuntu - Raring Ringtail. It won't be fixed in previous versions of Ubuntu because the package doesn't fit the requirements for backporting. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports for more information.