Inkscape crashes with X Window System error when trying to modify text (input method)

[Rongcui Dong]

When I try to change the text of one .svg file, as I type Inkscape becomes slower and slower, and finally crashes with this terminal output:

The program 'inkscape' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'.
  (Details: serial 501741 error_code 16 request_code 18 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

No noticable CPU and memory usage change when this behavior appears.

The attachment includes the file I have half-changed. I was traslating the Chinese sentenses into English, and then the behaviour always appears.

I am using:

Funtoo current amd64
Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939 (Nov 22 2013)

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Not reproduced on Windows XP, Inkscape 0.48.4 and trunk revision 12845.

[Rongcui Dong (carldong76)]

Further testing:

This error ONLY(as far as I tried) and ALWAYS reproduces when I:

1. Type in Chinese character,
2. Defocus by clicking away
3. Refocus into edit mode
4. Type in English characters

(Another problem: window of Fcitx is thrown off-screen for some reason, so I cannot see the word choosing box, requiring me to cut out text and use a new text box and hopefully the word-choice box is back on screen. Maybe it is because of my dual screen setup?)

Other information:
xorg-server 1.14.3-r2
xf86-video-intel 2.21.15
gdk-pixbuf 2.28.2
gtk+ 2.24.22 and 3.8.7
nvidia-drivers 331.20 (I am using Intel as X11 output, so this shouldn't be active)

These are all info I can think of now.

[Rongcui Dong (carldong76)]

Ok, it is not the problem of charactors. As long as I try to change the text(no matter what it is, English or Chinese), it crashes.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Not reproduced on Crunchbang Waldorf (a Debian stable based distro), with Inkscape 0.48.3.1 and trunk revision 12845.

Does Inkscape also crash if you edit other types of objects (shapes, paths...)?

[Rongcui Dong (carldong76)]

No, it does not crash on other type as far as I tried. I tried node editing, path editing. Also, I used Inkscape on some other projects which used only paths and shapes, and it worked without a problem. It seems that only text is affected.

[Rongcui Dong (carldong76)]

> xdpyinfo -queryExtensions
name of display: :0
version number: 11.0
vendor string: The X.Org Foundation
vendor release number: 11403000
X.Org version: 1.14.3
maximum request size: 16777212 bytes
motion buffer size: 256
bitmap unit, bit order, padding: 32, LSBFirst, 32
image byte order: LSBFirst
number of supported pixmap formats: 7
supported pixmap formats:
    depth 1, bits_per_pixel 1, scanline_pad 32
    depth 4, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
    depth 8, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
    depth 15, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
    depth 16, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
    depth 24, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
    depth 32, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
keycode range: minimum 8, maximum 255
focus: window 0x2e00015, revert to PointerRoot
number of extensions: 26
    BIG-REQUESTS (opcode: 133)
    Composite (opcode: 141)
    DAMAGE (opcode: 142, base event: 90, base error: 149)
    DOUBLE-BUFFER (opcode: 144, base error: 150)
    DPMS (opcode: 146)
    DRI2 (opcode: 151, base event: 101)
    GLX (opcode: 152, base event: 103, base error: 167)
    Generic Event Extension (opcode: 128)
    MIT-SCREEN-SAVER (opcode: 143, base event: 91)
    MIT-SHM (opcode: 130, base event: 65, base error: 128)
    RANDR (opcode: 139, base event: 88, base error: 145)
    RECORD (opcode: 145, base error: 151)
    RENDER (opcode: 138, base error: 140)
    SGI-GLX (opcode: 152, base event: 103, base error: 167)
    SHAPE (opcode: 129, base event: 64)
    SYNC (opcode: 134, base event: 83, base error: 134)
    X-Resource (opcode: 147)
    XC-MISC (opcode: 136)
    XFIXES (opcode: 137, base event: 86, base error: 138)
    XFree86-DGA (opcode: 150, base event: 94, base error: 162)
    XFree86-VidModeExtension (opcode: 149, base error: 155)
    XINERAMA (opcode: 140)
    XInputExtension (opcode: 131, base event: 66, base error: 129)
    XKEYBOARD (opcode: 135, base event: 85, base error: 137)
    XTEST (opcode: 132)
    XVideo (opcode: 148, base event: 92, base error: 152)
default screen number: 0
number of screens: 1

screen #0:
  dimensions: 2880x1024 pixels (758x269 millimeters)
  resolution: 97x97 dots per inch
  depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
  root window id: 0x9f
  depth of root window: 24 planes
  number of colormaps: minimum 1, maximum 1
  default colormap: 0x22
  default number of colormap cells: 256
  preallocated pixels: black 0, white 16777215
  options: backing-store NO, save-unders NO
  largest cursor: 64x64
  current input event mask: 0xfac031
    KeyPressMask EnterWindowMask LeaveWindowMask
    KeymapStateMask ExposureMask StructureNotifyMask
    SubstructureNotifyMask SubstructureRedirectMask FocusChangeMask
    PropertyChangeMask ColormapChangeMask
  number of visuals: 20
  default visual id: 0x20
  visual:
    visual id: 0x20
    class: TrueColor
    depth: 24 planes
    available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
    red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
    significant bits in color specification: 8 ...

[Aja (bedouin)]

I've got a quite similar problem here. when I'm typing long text, inkscape hanged, everything stuck, even if I close the window.
I've tried running it via terminal, but there is no error log, only "Killed" output printed in the console.
I got this problem occured in kubuntu 13.04 and 14.04 beta. inkscape version 0.4.84 r9930

[Rongcui Dong (carldong76)]

upgraded to mesa 10.1.0, inkscape version not changed. Still presents

[Jukka Korhonen (loadus)]

Not sure if I'm having the exact same bug, but Inkscape hangs when editing text and the symptoms seem the same. This just started happening, worked fine on a clean install.

I first thought this happened because I made my own build of Inkscape 0.48.5.1 but it seems that it's not an Inkscape bug, but merely some conflict in python (this is me shooting in the dark).

The errors it spits out at startup are:

Unable to find: ViewColorModeNormal

** (inkscape:5968): WARNING **: Unknown verb name: ViewColorModeNormal
Unable to find: ViewColorModeGrayscale

** (inkscape:5968): WARNING **: Unknown verb name: ViewColorModeGrayscale
Unable to find: ViewColorModeToggle

** (inkscape:5968): WARNING **: Unknown verb name: ViewColorModeToggle
Unable to find: org.inkscape.typography.newglyphlayer

** (inkscape:5968): WARNING **: Unknown verb name: org.inkscape.typography.newglyphlayer
Unable to find: org.inkscape.typography.newglyphlayer

** (inkscape:5968): WARNING **: Unknown verb name: org.inkscape.typography.newglyphlayer

Those last errors might give some hint on what's happening (if it is the same bug).

I can type around 35-40 letters or keyboard commands when the text input slows down to a crawl and eventually hangs the program. CPU usage is 0%, nothing is critically hanging, everything just stops. No output on console.

Kubuntu 14.04 amd64 with custom made build of Inkscape 0.48.5.1 or the 0.48.4 from Ubuntu's official repo.

[A.Dingwell (metnix)]

I'm running into the same problem, text editing in inkscape (v 0.48.4 from the repo) is extremely unstable and causes frequent freezes. I get no errors when launching inkscape from the terminal, whether at startup or at the freeze. Occasionally I notice a slow down before the freeze but sometimes it's immediate. CPU-usage is 0%.

[Ricardo Saito (ricardo-z)]

Same thing for me.

I am runnung Ubuntu 14.10 64-bit and Inkscape 0.48.5 r10040 (from official repo).

To me, it seems to happen earlier the heavier the file is. After inputting some text characters (about 20 in a 38MB file), suddenly it slows down and freezes. No significant CPU or RAM usage.

The only output from the terminal is "inkscape: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0." when I close it.

[Marlon Ramos Lopes (m-r-lopes)]

(I don't speak English. Sorry)

I'm running Kubuntu 14.04 64-bit (KDE 4.13.3) and Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939.
When I try edit a text, Inkscape freezes. Create a new textbox is fine. The problem is only in edit.
From terminal (to more information), when frezzes, results this:

** (inkscape:17138): WARNING **: Ignorando fonte sem família que irá travar o Pango

(inkscape:17138): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to set text from markup due to error parsing markup: Erro na linha 1 caractere 29: " " não é um caractere válido após os caracteres "</"; " " não poderá começar o nome de um elemento
Morto

(In a mix of Portuguese and English).

[Marlon Ramos Lopes (m-r-lopes)]

It's possibly related?
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/805238

[Paulo (ptsneves)]

I have had these problems and solved them for me by launching inkscape from the sh shell like:

unset GTK_IM_MODULE && inkscape

I am also using Kubuntu and this problem has persisted throughout distribution upgrades.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

I'm running Lubuntu 14.04.1 with either inkscape 0.48.4-3ubuntu2 or inkscape-trunk 1:0.48+devel+13778+48~ubuntu14.04.1 and I had freezes (not crashes) with input on some files (namely http://spreadubuntu.org/en/material/unusual/lubuntu-visit-card SVGs) whereas with others I had no problem. In all cases, there was no remarkable output from `strace` except that it continued to recognize mouse input. I had to forcibly `kill` in order to get it to close.

GTK_IM_MODULE was set to 'xim'. Setting it to 'ibus' (which is installed, 1.5.5-1ubuntu3) or unsetting it solved the problem.

I have to wonder if the OP didn't have a different concern than what we're talking about, though. They describe a crash, where I and others refer to a freeze.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

On 2014-11-29 22:53 (+0100), Walter Lapchynski wrote:
> I have to wonder if the OP didn't have a different concern than what
> we're talking about, though. They describe a crash, where I and
> others refer to a freeze.

Later reports by Lubuntu users about crashes (or hangs) with text editing:
- Bug #1372742 “Inkscape crashes while writing text”
- Bug #1323061 “Crashes when writing”

Maybe the comments by those users in this report who did not experience an X Window System error should have been filed for bug #1323061, I don't know.

[Willem Pieterson (wpieterson)]

Have the same issue.

The program 'inkscape' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'.
  (Details: serial 175797 error_code 16 request_code 18 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Currently running 0.48.5 r10040 on Ubuntu 14.10. Bug also happened on 0.91

[Paul Wan (renue100)]

Inkscape0.91 crashes under interface using Chinese/Taiwan(zh-tw) when trying to group object, but inkscape0.91 will not crashes under interface using English or Chinese/China (zh-cn) !! Thank you so much!

[Gerard (scitechpol)]

I fixed it removing completely ibus packages and using xim instead. My distro is Kubuntu 14.04, so xim is the default package. As people says, the bug happened in both Inkscape versions (0.48 and 0.91).

[Torsten Bronger (bronger)]

I can confirm it with Inkscape 0.92.2 on Lubuntu 17.10. I also see the slowing down before the eventual crash.

[Torsten Bronger (bronger)]

Avoiding ibus does not help me.

[Erik Kallen (erikkallen)]

I can confirm it with Inkscape 0.92.3 on Ubuntu 17.10 with amdgpu drivers, it crashes approx. 30 seconds after editing a text node. If I leave edit mode quick enough it does not crash.

[Oliver Kennedy (xthemage)]

Encountering a similar glitch with Inkscape 0.92.3 (2405546, 2018-03-11) on PureOS (Based on Debian buster/sid). This only started happening recently, perhaps related to using a secondary monitor or external apple extended keyboard.

I haven't been able to pin the crash down to a specific, reproducible cause, but the SVG contained a lot of text fields. In addition to outright crashes, I also observed a second failure mode where Inkscape would stop responding to keyboard input. It didn't crash: mouse interactions still work, but once this happens I'm no longer able to enter text or use key commands (e.g., ctrl-s, ctrl-q) in Inkscape (other applications are unaffected).

[Alexander Adam (7ql6)]

I can confirm this issue since Ubuntu 17.10 and it still appears on Ubuntu 18.04. Even the flatpack variant of Inkscape is affected.
In my case it appears even in simple SVG documents but always with text editing.

I'm using noveau drivers on an XPS 15 9550 in case that makes any difference. Let me know if I could help by providing some data.

I have the feeling that these are duplicates:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/inkscape/+bug/1385009
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/inkscape/+bug/406036

and this seems to be a similar issue on redhat:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=544590

[Gwyn Ciesla (limburgher)]

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1612618

[Gwyn Ciesla (limburgher)]

Please see patch I submitted in #1803553.