metacity crashed with SIGABRT in __kernel_vsyscall() with overlay-scrollbars

[Venkat]

i was installing a package via metacity. I tried to install two packages simultaneously.

TEST CASE
1. Start VLC
2. Click on the 'play list' button

Result:
This crash

WORKAROUND
Disable overlay scrollbars before starting vlc. From a terminal run
$ export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0
$ vlc

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: metacity 1:2.34.1-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.17-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 1.22.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Sep 13 15:22:58 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/metacity
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta i386 (20110901)
ProcCmdline: metacity
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_IN:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_IN
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Signal: 6
SourcePackage: metacity
StacktraceTop:
 __kernel_vsyscall ()
 raise () from /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
 abort () from /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
 ?? ()
 ?? ()
Title: metacity crashed with SIGABRT in __kernel_vsyscall()
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:
 meta_bug (format=0x80b0c60 "Unexpected X error: %s serial %ld error_code %d request_code %d minor_code %d)\n") at core/util.c:398
 x_error_handler (error=0xbf924acc, xdisplay=0x9104b88) at core/errors.c:247
 x_error_handler (xdisplay=0x9104b88, error=0xbf924acc) at core/errors.c:203
 _XError (dpy=0x9104b88, rep=0x9131840) at ../../src/XlibInt.c:1583
 handle_error (dpy=0x9104b88, err=0x9131840, in_XReply=0) at ../../src/xcb_io.c:212

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

this seems to still be an issue with latest package on Oneiric, targeting to it so it can be fixed there.

[balo (vbalazs-deactivatedaccount)]

happened with me when i set the volume with my keyboard.
i can't reproduce it, happening sometimes but always unexpectedly.

often it happens while using vlc (hide / show, and other operations)
see my duplicated bug: #858322 i hope this help

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Can someone recreate this whilst running metacity with the --sync option? The stacktrace here isn't much use, as it's not where the actual error occurred

[balo (vbalazs-deactivatedaccount)]

i set the --sync option, i create bug report when crash.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

bumping to high due to the number of duplicates.
I can reproducibly produce this crash with VLC.

Test case:
1. Start VLC
2. Click on the 'play list' button

result this crash

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

@Jean-Baptiste: It should have been fixed in bug 805303, can you please ensure that you have the latest Qt and then paste here terminal output of VLC?

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

@Dmitry, yes it still happens with Qt 4:4.7.4-0ubuntu4
The output of vlc is attached

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

easily reproduced with VLC

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

It seems that you are still experiencing that bug (#805303), maybe it's a good idea to reopen it?

Some other people also get it with the patched version, see comments 69, 71, 73.
And comment 62 suggests that this can happen because of calling putenv() in multi-thread application.

[Aurélien Gâteau (agateau)]

In the beginning of vlc.out there is a line which says:

  Blocked: call to putenv("LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0")

That could be the problem. Anyone knows where this "Blocked" line comes from?

[Aurélien Gâteau (agateau)]

Never mind, comment #62 from bug #805303 explains the reason for the "Blocked" line.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I can reproduce this. Running metacity in gdb is a bit tricky as it keeps locking up, but I was able to generate a core file, and then produce a stack trace with full symbols from it. This was run with --sync.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I did a few obvious checks:

 * unapplying all our patches doesn't help
 * upstream git head doesn't have any code changes since 2.34.1
 * upstream git head with -g -O0 still crashes

Right before it crashes, metacity logs

   Log level 16: Native children wider or taller than 65535 pixels are not supported

so we need to find out where it tries to allocate or change such a big widget.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

I don't know it it's related, but if I disable overlay scrollbar before running vlc, then metacity doesn't crash
$ export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0
$ vlc
works fine.

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

ah, so vlc is making metacity crashes? Seems related to a fix I just pushed for bug #805303 (linked to overlay-scrollbar)

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

And indeed we see in the stack trace:

#12 0x00007fc81b7c18dd in _gdk_pixmap_new (drawable=0x134c5a0, width=564, height=65535, depth=24)

even though the log message says that 65535 should still just barely fit, it does seem like a bug.

No part of the stack trace goes through metacity here, it seems to be an internal repaint operation in GTK 2 (gdk_window_update_idle()).

Chris just pointed out that I'm seeing a different crash than the original reporter here. Unfortunately for the dupe checker they are indistinguishable. However, I'm investigating the one I see for now, as it's the one I can reliably reproduce.

Note that it won't make much sense to report this upstream. Both GTK 2 and metacity are obsolete and unmaintained, and for 12.04 we ought to find another window manager for unity 2D.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I confirm that with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 these don't happen. This is most probably a dupe of bug 805303.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I think this was fixed for good with bug 805303, so it's a duplicate. However, as both bugs already have tons of duplicates, I just close this, instead of generating even more bug spam mail by duplicating.