Kbibtex hangs and crashes during online search

[Cefn]

Binary package hint: kbibtex

I launch a completely fresh copy of Kbibtex, search for the following string using Google Scholar...

"visual programming technology"

...and the program hangs indefinitely at 11% retrieved.

Clicking on cancel or clicking the close button on the modal dialog causes the whole program to crash, and all windows disappear, losing any edits you've made.

If you run it from the command line and proceed through the steps above it reports the following 'state= 0' line about a million times. Note the last line 'Segmentation Fault'. Not good.

state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
state= 0
Segmentation fault

I'm running this on Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid with the latest updates.

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

To get the core dump and debug it, If I run...

ulimit -c unlimited
kbibtex --nocrashhandler
gdb kbibtex core

...it reports the following which I hope is helpful...

(gdb) backtrace
#0 0xb6d83a28 in vfprintf () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#1 0xb6d887a0 in ?? () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#2 0xb6d83c6e in vfprintf () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#3 0xb6d8dc7f in fprintf () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#4 0xb750a696 in qDebug () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#5 0xb64b038b in KBibTeX::WebQueryGoogleScholar::cancelQuery ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
#6 0xb64a05b5 in KBibTeX::WebQuery::slotCancelQuery ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
#7 0xb64a0f42 in KBibTeX::WebQuery::qt_invoke ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
#8 0xb64bbc1b in KBibTeX::WebQueryGoogleScholar::qt_invoke ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
#9 0xb723138a in QObject::activate_signal () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#10 0xb72338ab in QObject::activate_signal () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#11 0xb7a5d4dc in KDialogBase::cancelClicked () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.4
#12 0xb7a5d512 in KDialogBase::slotCancel () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.4
#13 0xb7a5d5cd in KProgressDialog::slotCancel () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.4
#14 0xb7a2a875 in KDialogBase::cancel () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.4
#15 0xb64a16eb in KBibTeX::WebQueryWizard::endSearch ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
#16 0xb64a5bf6 in KBibTeX::WebQueryWizard::qt_invoke ()
   from /usr/lib/kde3/libkbibtexpart.so
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

The latest kbibtex-svnsnapshot.tar.bz2 downloaded from the package author's site at http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~fischer/kbibtex/ a few minutes also demonstrates this hang and crash behaviour using the same steps.

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

The version checked out from the Ubuntu maintainer through synaptic after this modification to my sources.list...

deb http://apsy.gse.uni-magdeburg.de/debian intrepid main

...is in fact worse than any of them.

A google scholar search with this kbibtex, which identifies itself...

kbibtex -v
Qt: 3.3.8b
KDE: 3.5.10
KBibTeX: svnsnapshot-895

...creates an endlessly flashing (disappearing and reappearing) modal dialog which reports 0% progress, and which cannot be cancelled. Clicking close on the window behind (the online search window) causes the whole program to crash.

If someone will tell me which of these versions is MEANT to work and deserves a full crash report I'll try to get the right info to enable a backport to be created for this.

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

It's possible that this crash is connected to a checkbox 'Launch KDE services on startup', found in...

Applications=>Settings=>Settings Manager=>Sessions and Startup

...as today after changing my session config to launch KDE services by default, I no longer experience this problem. The same Google Scholar search completes correctly.

[Tom Jennings (tomj-wps)]

Cefn,

Can you give a more cogent description than 'Applications=>Settings=>Settings Manager=>Sessions and Startup'?

My gnome desktop has no 'settings' item in the 'applications' pulldown (oh how I hate gui's sometimes). Is this a setting managed by gnome-settings-daemon? No luck searching for a "Settings Manager" either. To what are you referring, exactly?

kBibTex occasionally works for me, but after 0< N < a dozen searches, it hangs at 1%, 11%, 98%, etc. Once it's hung on a search, cancel and re-search (or a new search) fails at 0% or 1%. Previously, CANCEL simply cancelled the search. Now it crashes kbibtex with segfault. Run in xterm "state=0" scrolls off the screen.

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

The option I'm describing is an XFCE settings option, which relates to the Xubuntu distribution and its lightweight window manager. If you're not running on Xubuntu, then this option won't be there.

Because it's not committed to Gnome (Ubuntu) or KDE (Kubuntu), it's up to you whether you launch any Gnome or KDE supporting services when your Xubuntu session starts. I understood that this was an issue of startup speed (e.g. if the services are already running, then launching a KDE-based app would be quicker). However, it seems as if these services being running could be a requirement for Kbibtex to run without errors. I guess it's not causing some services to launch which it actually relies on.

Take a look at this page - the advanced tab in the settings manager is what I'm talking about.
http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4.2/manuals/xfce4-session

If you can fathom what's behind this GUI pane, then you'll be able to set it in your environment too. If you want to be sure, you could always install Kubuntu, but in my experience it's a bit annoying to have two sets of every application when you've installed the desktops from two distributions.

[Tom Jennings (tomj-wps)]

(15 minutes after that post I realized it was xubuntu). Even after RTFM I cannot puzzle out which KDE services are the problem here.

I can say this: kbibtex search works more or less correctly the first few times it is run after boot (possibly after X restart, have not tried that obvious test yet). Sometimes the search [Google Scholar] completes 100%; but most often it gets to 98%, but the search-results window is accessible, I can import, save, etc. Clicking CANCEL allows me, often, to search again, successfully.

But at some point, CANCEL causes crash and results above. After that, kbibtex will not search until after next reboot.

I could "live" with that. But.... sigh, export fails, complaining about

<argument> \@listctr

and claims to write to bibtex-to-pdf.log, but find . | egrep cannot find any such log. And I cannot paste from the error dialog box.

Has this program EVER worked? I'd love to debug, but I am writing a thesis and have no extra brain cells.

I did ps axuw and diff, with kbibtex running successfully and after it crashed, and came up with only this:

< tomic 5875 0.0 0.1 147540 6596 ? Ssl Feb25 0:00 x-session-manager
< tomic 5882 1.0 0.8 191864 32676 ? S 09:33 0:06 kbibtex --icon=kbibtex -caption KBibTeX
< tomic 5887 0.0 0.1 116056 6332 ? Ss 09:33 0:00 kdeinit Running...
< tomic 5892 0.0 0.1 119652 5032 ? S 09:33 0:00 dcopserver [kdeinit] --nosid --suicide
< tomic 5895 0.0 0.1 120104 6912 ? S 09:33 0:00 klauncher [kdeinit] --new-startup
< tomic 5897 0.0 0.2 123168 9424 ? S 09:33 0:00 kded [kdeinit] --new-startup
< tomic 5912 0.0 0.1 126748 6528 ? S 09:33 0:00 kio_file [kdeinit] file /tmp/ksocket-t
---
> tomic 5875 0.0 0.1 147540 6608 ? Ssl Feb25 0:00 x-session-manager
> tomic 5892 0.0 0.1 119652 5044 ? S 09:33 0:00 dcopserver [kdeinit] --nosid --suicide

Ubuntu 8.10, gnome.

[Cefn (6-launchpad-net-cefn-com)]

I can confirm that the application does indeed work for me now I've arranged to launch the proper KDE services. Don't know how to achieve this on Gnome, but I'll be building a new Gnome desktop soon so I hope to try.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. Could test the current Ubuntu development version? It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

 We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!