gnome-shell crashed with SIGSEGV in malloc_consolidate()

[chris pollock]

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/12802bbe39099d82ed789c75b8a9b2d9eca851ce

---

This is:
apt-cache policy gnome-shell
gnome-shell:
  Installed: 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.3
  Candidate: 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.3
  Version table:
on Ubuntu
lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release: 16.04

Gnome Shell will crash just about every time when doing software updates. For instance this morning when updating:

Start-Date: 2018-02-15 09:04:14
Commandline: apt-get -y install postfix postfix-doc
Upgrade: postfix:amd64 (3.1.0-3ubuntu0.2, 3.1.0-3ubuntu0.3), postfix-doc:amd64 (3.1.0-3ubuntu0.2, 3.1.0-3ubuntu0.3)
End-Date: 2018-02-15 09:05:31

it crashed.

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-32.35~16.04.1-generic 4.13.13
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.15
Architecture: amd64
CrashCounter: 1
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Thu Feb 15 08:56:24 2018
DisplayManager: gdm3
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-10-24 (1210 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Signal: 11
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
StacktraceTop:
 malloc_consolidate (av=av@entry=0x7f5cbb99eb20 <main_arena>) at malloc.c:4183
 _int_malloc (av=av@entry=0x7f5cbb99eb20 <main_arena>, bytes=bytes@entry=32816) at malloc.c:3450
 __GI___libc_malloc (bytes=32816) at malloc.c:2913
 __alloc_dir (statp=0x7ffea71631b0, flags=0, close_fd=true, fd=33) at ../sysdeps/posix/opendir.c:247
 opendir_tail (fd=33) at ../sysdeps/posix/opendir.c:145
Title: gnome-shell crashed with SIGSEGV in malloc_consolidate()
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip kvm libvirtd lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare sudo

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:
 malloc_consolidate (av=av@entry=0x7f5cbb99eb20 <main_arena>) at malloc.c:4183
 _int_malloc (av=av@entry=0x7f5cbb99eb20 <main_arena>, bytes=bytes@entry=32816) at malloc.c:3450
 __GI___libc_malloc (bytes=32816) at malloc.c:2913
 __alloc_dir (statp=0x7ffea71631b0, flags=0, close_fd=true, fd=33) at ../sysdeps/posix/opendir.c:247
 opendir_tail (fd=33) at ../sysdeps/posix/opendir.c:145

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Tracking in:
https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/12802bbe39099d82ed789c75b8a9b2d9eca851ce

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Fix released (no crashes reported after 17.04)

[chris pollock (cpollock)]

Happened again however I see a fix has been released for 17.04. Was it also released for 16.04 LTS? Happened when updating:

Start-Date: 2018-04-05 17:25:29
Commandline: apt-get -y install firefox firefox-locale-en libruby2.3 ruby2.3
Upgrade: ruby2.3:amd64 (2.3.1-2~16.04.6, 2.3.1-2~16.04.7), libruby2.3:amd64 (2.3.1-2~16.04.6, 2.3.1-2~16.04.7), firefox-locale-en:amd64 (59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1, 59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.3), firefox:amd64 (59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1, 59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.3)
End-Date: 2018-04-05 17:28:13

Via Webmin 1.881

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

There was no explicit known fix.

So while we can see it stopped happening after 17.04, we don't know what exactly fixed it and so can't cherry pick a fix into 16.04 right now. You will need to be using Ubuntu 17.10 or later instead.

[chris pollock (cpollock)]

Thanks Daniel, since I'm sure 18.04 is to be released soon I'll ignore this report.