/usr/bin/appstreamcli:*** Error in `appstreamcli': double free or corruption (fasttop): ADDR ***

[errors.ubuntu.com bug bridge]

The Ubuntu Error Tracker has been receiving reports about a problem regarding appstream. This problem was most recently seen with package version 0.9.4-1ubuntu3, the problem page at https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/1e136f3d63e3c33d2d2fd3d3812f9d0ff24cd054 contains more details, including versions of packages affected, stacktrace or traceback, and individual crash reports.
If you do not have access to the Ubuntu Error Tracker and are a software developer, you can request it at http://forms.canonical.com/reports/.

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

Relevant patch: https://github.com/ximion/appstream/commit/28f90c3fd1926fa684370e550861a6704eb5498c
I forgot that Ubuntu was using a version that is affected by this - interestingly, it only started to manifest now.

I think applying the whole refactoring patch is the recommended thing to do, instead of "just" fixing the corruption, because doing so will also fix stock icon handling in this version of AppStream. This should get some testing though.

[Iain Lane (laney)]

We have this patch in 0.9.4-1ubuntu1.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/appstream/0.9.4-1ubuntu1

For some reason™ people aren't receiving the update - possibly because this bug in 0.9.4 (Xenial release) makes their `apt update' crash, so they don't see updated indices and never get the updated libappstream3 (or any other update).