empathy crashed with SIGSEGV in g_type_check_instance()

[Aureo Fetter]

Binary package hint: empathy

The emphathy crashed when I try to start it

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Oct 13 08:41:39 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
Package: empathy 2.28.0.1-1ubuntu4
ProcCmdline: empathy
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANGUAGE=pt_BR.UTF-8
 LANG=pt_BR.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-13.44-generic
SegvAnalysis:
 Segfault happened at: 0xece293 <g_type_check_instance+35>: mov (%eax),%edx
 PC (0x00ece293) ok
 source "(%eax)" (0x000000d3) not located in a known VMA region (needed readable region)!
 destination "%edx" ok
SegvReason: reading NULL VMA
Signal: 11
SourcePackage: empathy
StacktraceTop:
 g_type_check_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
 g_signal_connect_data () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
 ?? ()
 g_type_create_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
 ?? () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
Title: empathy crashed with SIGSEGV in g_type_check_instance()
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-13-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:g_type_check_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
g_signal_connect_data () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
empathy_event_manager_init (manager=0x99f45b8)
g_type_create_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
?? () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

#17 0x0807dddb in empathy_indicator_manager_dup_singleton ()
    at empathy-indicator-manager.c:266

-> seems to be due to the indicator ubuntu change

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Thank you for the bug report. Is this the first time you have run empathy? Is there already accounts setup for use in empathy? Had you been using pidgin before on this same install (or using the same home directory)? If so, did you get prompted to import you account settings from pidgin when you ran empathy?

Thanks

[Blair Zajac (blair)]

Answering Ken's question for my case.

I upgraded to empathy from pidgin roughly a week ago and I've been
using it daily since then and it's been working great.

However, this morning, immediately upon launching it, it core dumps
just after the gnome key chain password window appears.

[Aureo Fetter (aureo-fetter)]

Em Quarta-feira 14 Outubro 2009, às 09:43:28, você escreveu:
> Thank you for the bug report. Is this the first time you have run
> empathy?
Yes
> Is there already accounts setup for use in empathy?
No
> Had you been using pidgin before on this same install (or using the same
home directory)?
Yes
> If so, did you get prompted to import you account settings
> from pidgin when you ran empathy?
No
>
> Thanks
>

After the last update the empathy works well!

Thanks for attention!

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Great, thanks I am marking this as fixed.

[Blair Zajac (blair)]

I just did a

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

and I still get the crash. Should I see the fix yet?

Regards,
Blair

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Blair can you answer the same questions Aureo did? Also are you running GNOME or some other desktop environment?

Thanks

[Blair Zajac (blair)]

I am running Gnome.

> Is this the first time you have no empathy?

No. I upgraded to empathy from pidgin roughly a week ago and I've been
using it daily since then and it's been working great.

> Is there already accounts setup for use in empathy?

Yes, I've been successfully logging into Yahoo for the last week.

> Had you been using pidgin before on this same install (or using the same
home directory)?

Yes, I was using pidgin before empathy but successfully used empathy
up to today.

> If so, did you get prompted to import you account settings

Yes, I did get prompted.

Regards,
Blair

[Blair Zajac (blair)]

I just updated to empathy 2.28.0.1-1ubuntu6 and the core dump still happens.

Should we reopen this ticket?

[karlinux (carlosmolines)]

I afect too

[Peter van der Does (pdoes)]

empathy 2.28.0.1-1ubuntu Crashes for me as well

[Peter van der Does (pdoes)]

Just to add more info:
Never used empathy before.
Crashed upon start up. No screen shown.

Strace last part of it at least:

read(12, "GIOP\1\2\1\1(\0\0\0", 12) = 12
read(12, "\220\216\304\277\0\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\f\0\0\0\1\1\1\1\1\0\1\5\t\1\1\0"..., 40) = 40
gettimeofday({1255708223, 115194}, NULL) = 0
gettimeofday({1255708223, 115238}, NULL) = 0
gettimeofday({1255708223, 115483}, NULL) = 0
writev(6, [{"l\1\0\0014\0\0\0\26\0\0\0\200\0\0\0\1\1o\0\25\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 144}, {"(\0\0\0org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Cl"..., 52}], 2) = 196
gettimeofday({1255708223, 115572}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=6, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000) = 1 ([{fd=6, revents=POLLIN}])
read(6, "l\4\1\1C\0\0\0\26\0\0\0\211\0\0\0\1\1o\0\25\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 2048) = 516
read(6, 0x8b8bdc0, 2048) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1255708223, 118530}, NULL) = 0
gettimeofday({1255708223, 118849}, NULL) = 0
writev(6, [{"l\1\0\1D\0\0\0\27\0\0\0\200\0\0\0\1\1o\0\25\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 144}, {";\0\0\0org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Cl"..., 68}], 2) = 212
gettimeofday({1255708223, 118923}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=6, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000) = 1 ([{fd=6, revents=POLLIN}])
read(6, "l\4\1\1S\0\0\0\31\0\0\0\211\0\0\0\1\1o\0\25\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 2048) = 551
read(6, 0x8b8bdc0, 2048) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1255708223, 119567}, NULL) = 0
access("/home/pdoes/.config/Empathy", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/home/pdoes/.config/Empathy", 0xbfc49330) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/home/pdoes/.gnome2/Empathy", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/home/pdoes/.gnome2/Empathy", 0xbfc49330) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
gettimeofday({1255708223, 119822}, NULL) = 0
open("/usr/share/empathy/empathy-main-window.ui", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 15
fstat64(15, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=12735, ...}) = 0
read(15, "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n<!--*- mod"..., 12735) = 12735
close(15) = 0
brk(0x8bcc000) = 0x8bcc000
brk(0x8bed000) = 0x8bed000
clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, {11809, 601162422}) = 0
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV (core dumped) +++

[Jonathon Hodges (jonblondie)]

For me it won't start at all, no screen shown and it crashes each time. I've not previously used Empathy or Pidgin, though I have retained my home directory from 9.04 and just reformatted my root partition.

jblondie

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Peter: can you confirm this crash is fixed in 2.28.1?

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Jonathon: Please look at the "Debugging the old way" section of http://live.gnome.org/Empathy/Debugging and attach the log files it generates.

Thanks

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

I've got the same trace as Peter in comment #15
I have empathy 2.28.1

I started to get this crashes (not being able to run empathy) a couple of weeks ago, but I don't remember exactly when.
My account was automatically imported from pidgin and it worked with empathy without problems until the crash stopping me from starting empathy appeared.

What is worse is the fact that, even in a newly created account, completely empty (no files whatsoever in that /home/user directory) the empathy still crashes at startup. THIS shows me that the bug is not related to my personal settings, it will happen for every user of my computer (fortunately I'm the only one using it)

I was able to make it display the list of accounts ($ empathy -a) and they were correct. But I crashed even when I asked it to start without connecting ($ empathy -n)

[Benjamin Geese (ben-8409)]

I can confirm Dan's observation. But i believe i created my accounts myself.

empthy -a works,
empathy -n crashes as emphaty does since a few weeks or days.

also, i tried removing the configured accounts, but that doesn't help at all.

[Steffen Röcker (sroecker)]

I can confirm this, empathy -a works, but empathy crashes.
I had 1 Jabber and 1 Local account and it used to work.

Got a backtrace with a ddeb, looks the same like comment #4.

[Tobias (tobias-j)]

- I have a seg fault with Empathy 2.28.1 here too.
- empathy -a works
- empathy -n seg faults
- removing .config/Empathy/ doesn't help
- I had a working empathy on this system, but I don't know the version
- I had no pidgin on this system
- a self compiled Empathy 2.29.1.20091024 works fine
- there are no *empathy*-dbg packages so I can't create a useful bt

[Laurent Claessens (moky-math)]

@Tobial (#22) There are no empathy-dbg, but there exists the reps
deb http://ddebs.ubuntu.com/ karmic main restricted universe multiverse
and then the package
empathy-dbgsym

Btw, here is a (probably partial) list of debug packages related to Empathy :

libtelepathy-glib0-dbg libtelepathy-farsight0-dbg telepathy-mission-control-5-dbg telepathy-gabble-dbg libgstfarsight0.10-dbg valgrind libempathy30-dbgsym libempathy-gtk28-dbgsym empathy-dbgsym

[Steffen Röcker (sroecker)]

It crashes when it reaches empathy_indicator_manager_get_type the second time.

First call ist from empathy_indicator_manager_dup_singleton.
Second call is from empathy_indicator_manager_init.

priv = G_TYPE_INSTANCE_GET_PRIVATE (manager,
       EMPATHY_TYPE_INDICATOR_MANAGER, EmpathyIndicatorManagerPriv);

priv is NULL because it can't get the type so it segfaults in the next line.

It works on my other computer though.

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

Since it manifest itself even for a newly created user (with no configuration files whatsoever);
Since this critical bug for empathy doesn't get more attention, which means only a handful of people are affected;
Since I upgraded from Jaunty (long time ago, Karmic Alpha 1) and kept upgrading;
I can safely infer that the trouble comes from a leftover library/file/whatever in the day to day upgrade process.

The solution is simple and it comes back to the Windows days: reinstall.
I will loose nothing, all my data and configuration is in my home partition.

I will be back with a report after the not so painful process.

P.S. Before taking this route, please check that the bug is not in your local configuration files. If it crashes for a newly created user, it is in the system configuration (reinstall). If it works for a newly created user, it is in your user settings (clean your user configuration, difficult to know what to delete).

P.P.S. I think there are two bugs in this report: one is with the indicator, the other one is with empathy-main-window.ui (comment 15)

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

Yes, this was it! It works now, after reinstall. Painless...

Now, I was stupid. I should have saved a list of files (and a list of packages) on the previous install and compare it with the one for the new install. It would have helped other people to know exactly what to remove/delete.

Please, the next one who will make the reinstall trick, get this info before doing it and attach it to this bug report.
An "empathic" thanks!

[ThiagoSerra (thiagoserra)]

empathy crash on try to open.
Karmic 9.10 RC, netbook remix.

[Nathan Bosch (nbosch1)]

I am still affected by this bug. It started segfaulting after upgrading to Karmic beta, although I have kept up to date with the RC packages and so forth. I've tested empathy every time I've upgrade any packages that the upgrade manager suggests in case one of them is somehow related to empathy (none have appeared to be closely related), and as of 10/27/09 I am up to date. I have tried removing the local configuration directory and purging/installing empathy with no success. empathy -a has no segfault and I am able to import my accounts from Pidgin. empathy -v shows Empathy 2.28.1. I've attached the crash report. From the first time it crashed after my upgrade to Karmic beta.

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

Nathan, please seem my comments (25 and 26).

If I am right - and I know I am ;) - no amount of removing the local configuration will help.
You will need to reinstall Ubuntu (not empathy, I should have been clearer in my post).
It takes 30 minutes (if you have a separate home partition) and you loose nothing.

But please, take a list of your files and packages before and after the process in order to help developers to spot the difference.
Good luck!

[Guilherme Gondim (semente) (semente)]

I have the some problem, but the first crash of my Empathy was when I change to a webkit theme... minutes after empathy crashed and now I can't open it (segmentation fault).

[Guilherme Gondim (semente) (semente)]

Changing the theme from Dust to Human or Clearlooks the empathy works! The problem is with themes.

[Benjamin Geese (ben-8409)]

@semente: it seems to me you had another problem.

i cannot confirm. for me, changing the theme does not help. emphaty keeps crashing. where do i get the list of files and packages dan speaks of to help identify thsi problem?

[Nathan Bosch (nbosch1)]

Unfortunately I am not able to reinstall the OS at this time. I have tried changing themes with no success. I'll attach strace output in case it helps. (And I'll post another comment with my gdb backtrace and valgrind since I can't seem to attach more than 1 file at a time) I don't have the debug version of empathy so its hard to tell where the poorly initialized data is coming from... I'm not in a huge hurry to get empathy to work (since I can use pidgin in the meantime) so if any developers are having a hard time reproducing the problem and would like me to test anything further I'd be happy to do so.

I'm not familiar enough with gdb to be able to include this in the output, but using ddd I see that when the crash occurs type_instance->g_class = 0xce
pretty sure this is the dereference which causes the crash, not sure why/where this pointer gets set...

[Nathan Bosch (nbosch1)]

gdb backtrace

[Nathan Bosch (nbosch1)]

valgrind output

[Guilherme Gondim (semente) (semente)]

Dan and Benjamin, I think I have the same problem, see my bug report in #462598. Try open Empathy with guest session or other user (new user).

Note: I removed all settings and files related with Empathy and re-logout before try Empathy with another theme.

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

@Benjamin, there is no list. The next one of you who will reinstall will have to generate it.
This will help other people.

@Guilherme, for the moment launchpad doesn't allow me to see bug 462598. I'll try later.

My guess is this bug will take a long time to be solved if no one will generate that list for the developers to be able to compare what files/packages were installed after/before. They will focus on bugs in Karmic, or in bugs which appeared in the upgrade process from Jaunty to Karmic and not on the bugs which appeared for testers who migrated their computer through all Karmic stages (from alpha to release). Now I understand why it was suggested that once a release becomes stable to reinstall. I did not believe but this bug helped me see the truth ;)

I cannot help anymore since empathy is working for me now. Everyone who will reinstall Karmic will have empathy working.

[Benjamin Geese (ben-8409)]

i hope these help in resolving this bug.

in a after reinstalling, empathy works for me

[Guilherme Gondim (semente) (semente)]

Empathy works for me (with any theme, without segmentation fault) after installation of new packages from karmic-proposed.

[hub (huangbster)]

qqhub@hub-laptop:~$ gdb empathy
GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu
Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu".
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>...
Reading symbols from /usr/bin/empathy...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) r
Starting program: /usr/bin/empathy
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00414293 in g_type_check_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
(gdb) bt full
#0 0x00414293 in g_type_check_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#1 0x00410165 in g_signal_connect_data () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#2 0x0806ebba in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#3 0x0041c97f in g_type_create_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#4 0x00401748 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#5 0x0806e94b in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#6 0x00402708 in g_object_newv () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#7 0x0040358a in g_object_new_valist () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#8 0x0040370e in g_object_new () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#9 0x0806e78b in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#10 0x0807e596 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#11 0x0041c97f in g_type_create_instance () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#12 0x00401748 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#13 0x0807e44b in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#14 0x00402708 in g_object_newv () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#15 0x0040358a in g_object_new_valist () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#16 0x0040370e in g_object_new () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
No symbol table info available.
#17 0x0807e34b in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#18 0x0807608b in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#19 0x0805be89 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#20 0x06927b56 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
No symbol table info available.
#21 0x0805a841 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
(gdb)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

non debug stacktrace added without any comment are not really useful, could you give details on what you did?

[Steffen Röcker (sroecker)]

This bug seems to be fixed for me with the latest updates from karmic-proposed.
(The workaround with changing the theme,other than shiki, did also work for me)

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

It would be interesting to know if the users that have experienced this crash are using adium themes in empathy? And if so, which ones? The latest upload, did include a problem related to escaping message content using webkit (adium). Perhaps this crash was related.

The crash reports in comments #27 and #28 are different than the original crash report. I am pretty confident the original crash was fixed.

[Benjamin Geese (ben-8409)]

hi ken,
i did not use adium themes or anything else special in empathy and was still affected.

[Nathan Bosch (nbosch1)]

The latest upgrade seems to have fixed it for me. I am running 2.28.1.1 successfully.

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Great to hear, this must have been related to the leaks we fixed in that latest version. Goning mark this as fixed, if anyone gets this with 2.28.1.1 or later please re-open.

[Jordi Guillaumes (jguillaumes)]

I can confirm that 2.28.1.1 fixed the problem for me also. Good work!

[Pablo López Martín (mr-bible2001)]

I have the same problem as comment #15. I am a new user and it crashes on startup. empathy -a works. empathy alone doesn't

[Pablo López Martín (mr-bible2001)]

2.28.1.1 didn't work, but the experimental 2.29.2 does work now