lsb_release crashed with SIGABRT in Py_FatalError()

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement]

Crashed during installation of vmplayer 4.01 on amd64

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: lsb-release 4.0-0ubuntu17
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-8.15-generic 3.2.0
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-8-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.90-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CrashCounter: 1
Date: Mon Jan 16 11:16:04 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/lsb_release
ExecutableTimestamp: 1322748982
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.2mu
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/lsb_release -sd
ProcCwd: /home/j-lallement/Downloads
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Signal: 6
SourcePackage: lsb
StacktraceTop:
 raise () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
 abort () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
 Py_FatalError ()
 ?? ()
 Py_Main ()
Title: lsb_release crashed with SIGABRT in raise()
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups:

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:
 Py_FatalError ()
 Py_InitializeEx ()
 Py_Main ()
 main ()

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I tried recreating this using the following command on precise and was unsuccessful.

/usr/bin/python3.2mu /usr/bin/lsb_release -sd

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Could you give this a try again using the same command I did? Thanks!

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

it works when executed from the command line but always crashed when executed by vmplayer installer.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

A pure Python script should never be able to crash the interpreter, so this must be an interpreter bug rather than an lsb bug. lsb_release is just the unlucky script executed in whatever context manages to break python3.2.

A crash in Py_FatalError doesn't tell us much, though. It would be nice to know what message is printed.

[mdiianni (mdiianni)]

Just have the same problem on Ubuntu precise installing VMware Player 4.0.2

$ /usr/bin/python3.2mu /usr/bin/lsb_release -sd
Ubuntu precise (development branch)

...beside the message the installation run until the end.

[Evan Broder (broder)]

I ran into this error while installing VMware Player on Precise. I believe I've tracked it down to the environment that the VMware installer sets.

/usr/lib/vmware-installer/2.0/python/init.sh:

if [ -z "$_VMIS_INIT_PYTHON" ]; then
    export PYTHON_ROOT="$VMWARE_INSTALLER"/python

    . "$PYTHON_ROOT"/pygtk/init.sh

    export PYTHONHOME=`dirname "$PYTHON_ROOT"`
    export PYTHONPATH="$PYTHON_ROOT/lib:$PYTHON_ROOT/lib/lib-dynload:$PYTHONPATH"
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$PYTHON_ROOT/lib/libsqlite3:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

    PYTHON="$PYTHON_ROOT/python"

    export PYTHON
    export _VMIS_INIT_PYTHON=1
fi

Setting PYTHONHOME as init.sh sets it is enough to get python3.2mu to abort:

evan@evan-precise-amd64:~$ PYTHONHOME=/usr/lib/vmware-installer/2.0/python /usr/bin/python3.2mu /usr/bin/lsb_release -sd
Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding
LookupError: no codec search functions registered: can't find encoding
Aborted (core dumped)