K3b dies with a non empty rewriteable medium inserted

[Uqbar]

Binary package hint: k3b

I need to reformat and rewrite a CD-RW with k3b as I used to do in the past.
K3b dies with singal 11 100% of times, as soon as the CD is ready in the reader.
I'm using:

Qt: 4.6.2
KDE Development Platform: 4.4.1 (KDE 4.4.1)
K3b: 1.68.0

under
LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10
Codename: karmic

[Uqbar (uqbar)]

By blanking the medium by hand (with "cdrdao blank /dev/cdrw"), k3b goes back to normal operation, even blanking the medium.