Mail crashes when replying to an email if Fcitx is running [$50]

[Jonathan Lumb]

I use Fcitx for Chinese input in Loki. This causes Mail to crash when replying to emails. The bug can be reproduced in the following way:

When Fcitx is running (indicator visible, but Chinese input not activated):
1. Open an email in Mail.
2. Click reply
3. Start typing. Mail immediately freezes. If you wait for a while, it unfreezes, but as soon as you type again, it freezes once more.

When Fcitx is closed (select Exit from the indicator options):
1. Open an email in Mail.
2. Click reply.
3. Start typing. Mail behaves normally.

I am running fcitx version: 4.2.9.1 from the standard Loki (Ubuntu) repositories (no PPA)

Thank you!

[Jonathan Lumb (jonolumb)]

Bounty added: $15

[Jonathan Lumb (jonolumb)]

Update: This bug also affects the search feature in Mail. When you type in text, Mail freezes and eventually crashes. If you kill fcitx, everything works properly again.

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

Also reported upstream https://github.com/fcitx/fcitx/issues/304

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

This might be useful:

(pantheon-mail:22378): Gdk-ERROR **: The program 'pantheon-mail' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'.
  (Details: serial 165460 error_code 16 request_code 18 (core protocol) minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment
   variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

Found a temporary fix, run: GTK_IM_MODULE && pantheon-mail

Got the idea from here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1257413

[Jonathan Lumb (jonolumb)]

As a temporary fix, you can edit the Exec= line in the following files:

/usr/share/applications/org.pantheon.mail.desktop
/usr/share/applications/pantheon-mail-autostart.desktop

The edited line should be as follows:

Exec=env GTK_IM_MODULE="" pantheon-mail %U

By default GTK_IM_MODULE is set to xim. The above command unsets the input method variable.

The main drawback is that while Mail doesn't crash, I can't use fcitx any ore in Mail, so no Chinese text input!

Hopefully there can be a proper fix for this soon.

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

This bug is also present on the Geary version shipped with Loki.

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

This bug has already been fixed in Geary. Geary seems to be undergoing way faster development.

[Jonathan Lumb (jonolumb)]

I installed the latest version of Geary (0.11.3) but this issue is still occurring.

[climatewarrior (gabrieljoel)]

Interesting, I am also on 0.11.3.

My current setup is iBus + fcitx and it is working just fine, although
if I remember correctly it was also working with mozc. I switched to
iBus + fcitx so that I could run it on Wayland as fcitx doesn't support
Wayland. That said I am no longer on Elementary, I am now on Arch Linux.

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 11:12 PM, Jonathan Lumb
<email address hidden> wrote:
> I installed the latest version of Geary (0.11.3) but this issue is
> still
> occurring.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1630345).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1633980
>
> Title:
> Mail crashes when replying to an email if Fcitx is running [$50]
>
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