Hexchat is unstable in Ubuntu 16.10

[Corsaire]

I use Hexchat for several years without any issue so far, but since I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.10 it crashes without reason several times a day.
The focus isn't even on the windows and I am watching another virtual desktop.

Running on Gnome3 Desktop.

can be seen in the IRC channel from another computer when crashing

* username has quit (Input/output error)

[TingPing (tingping)]

It is probably worth saying the package is 3 releases behind.

[Corsaire (stranche)]

> TingPing (tingping) wrote 13 hours ago:
> It is probably worth saying the package is 3 releases behind.

Yup, and it may point to something triggering the problem.

When it crashed today I could have a look at the crash report and I saw something disturbing : the package being used is for Ubuntu 14.10.

The reason is I upgraded my Ubuntu version from 14.10 and all this time since as pointed the package is 3 releases behind it was never changed by the release-update process.

Is it a good thing to have a dynamic linked package untouched ? Maybe not.

The source code and libraries may be the same version, the compiling process may have changed and trigger some oddities.
I forced a reinstall of the package, let's see how it behaves now.

[Corsaire (stranche)]

No luck...

Hexchat decided to crash again last night.

It really needs an up-to-date fresh package.

[Corsaire (stranche)]

So, I took the latest stable sources form the HexChat website, compile it and create a .deb package using these steps http://packaging.ubuntu.com/html/packaging-new-software.html , and now I am running without a crash for almost one week 24h/24.

So I really wish for a new official ubuntu package up-to-date.

Meanwhile, you should try this too if you've got the same trouble.

[TingPing (tingping)]

There is also an up to date PPA on the website: https://hexchat.github.io

[Mattia Rizzolo (mapreri)]

> Is it a good thing to have a dynamic linked package untouched ? Maybe not.
>
> The source code and libraries may be the same version, the compiling process
> may have changed and trigger some oddities.
> I forced a reinstall of the package, let's see how it behaves now.

This shouldn't matter a thing at all.
If it does, then it's a linker bug, usually.

[Mattia Rizzolo (mapreri)]

> So I really wish for a new official ubuntu package up-to-date.

Anyway, this won't happen, because simply packages are not updated to new releases in stable releases (apart from few exceptions).
Also, this bug is not really actionable, as "program is unstable" is not much to go on. Besides, I tried to run it on a clean yakkety install for a few hours, and I didn't encounter any oddities.

If you are bleed edge software, you can consider updating to the development version of ubuntu (zesty) in some weeks (Feature Freeze is 16th February, and after that nothing huge/breaking should happen).

If you have any particular crash or so, please report it, and that can be probably be actually fixed; I'm closing this bug.

[Corsaire (stranche)]

I think you're a bit too fast to close an issue...

Did you test using several different charsets on different servers ?

I actually use a mix of UTF8 and ISO-2022-JP.

[Mattia Rizzolo (mapreri)]

nope, I haven't.
What I ran is my usual setup with only UTF-8 connecting to 2 servers (both
connections being to my bouncer).

On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 3:50 AM Corsaire <email address hidden> wrote:

> I think you're a bit too fast to close an issue...
>
> Did you test using several different charsets on different servers ?
>
> I actually use a mix of UTF8 and ISO-2022-JP.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to Ubuntu.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1637179
>
> Title:
> Hexchat is unstable in Ubuntu 16.10
>
> Status in hexchat package in Ubuntu:
> Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> I use Hexchat for several years without any issue so far, but since I
> upgraded to Ubuntu 16.10 it crashes without reason several times a day.
> The focus isn't even on the windows and I am watching another virtual
> desktop.
>
> Running on Gnome3 Desktop.
>
> can be seen in the IRC channel from another computer when crashing
>
> * username has quit (Input/output error)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hexchat/+bug/1637179/+subscriptions
>
>