Launching inkscape with LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8, crashes reproducibly every time in File -> Open...
I've seen it also crashing with zh_TW.UTF-8 after browsing some .svg files (with and without preview enabled).
This bug affect both 0.46 stable and recent svn devel versions. Below the backtrace, attached a full backtrace too.
Moreover pango_ft2_font_get_face is deprecated, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/166276
It was originally reported in debian BTS, see http://bugs.debian.org/487623
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb6203700 (LWP 4030)]
font_instance::InitTheFace (this=0x0) at libnrtype/FontInstance.cpp:349
349 theFace=pango_ft2_font_get_face(pFont);
(gdb) bt
#0 font_instance::InitTheFace (this=0x0) at libnrtype/FontInstance.cpp:349
#1 0x083e9ed0 in font_factory::Face (this=0xa0370b0, descr=0xc3ca100, canFail=false) at libnrtype/FontFactory.cpp:824
#2 0x083ea132 in font_factory::Face (this=0xa0370b0, descr=0xc3ca100, canFail=true) at libnrtype/FontFactory.cpp:801
#3 0x083f806b in Inkscape::Text::Layout::Calculator::_buildPangoItemizationForPara (this=0xbf88affc, para=0xbf88af44)
at libnrtype/Layout-TNG-Compute.cpp:879
#4 0x083f990a in Inkscape::Text::Layout::Calculator::calculate (this=0xbf88affc) at libnrtype/Layout-TNG-Compute.cpp:1377
#5 0x083f9f2d in Inkscape::Text::Layout::calculateFlow (this=0xb1bd2d8) at libnrtype/Layout-TNG-Compute.cpp:1515
#6 0x080f5657 in SPText::rebuildLayout (this=0xb1bd1b8) at sp-text.cpp:573
#7 0x080f5936 in sp_text_update (object=0xb1bd1b8, ctx=0xbf88b1a8, flags=<value optimized out>) at sp-text.cpp:248
#8 0x080d8856 in SPObject::updateDisplay (this=0xb1bd1b8, ctx=0xbf88b1a8, flags=127) at sp-object.cpp:1298
#9 0x080c79df in CGroup::onUpdate (this=0xc414800, ctx=0xbf88b2e8, flags=92) at sp-item-group.cpp:668
#10 0x080d8856 in SPObject::updateDisplay (this=0xb1a0da0, ctx=0xbf88b2e8, flags=95) at sp-object.cpp:1298
#11 0x080c79df in CGroup::onUpdate (this=0xc414da8, ctx=0xbf88b42c, flags=28) at sp-item-group.cpp:668
#12 0x080e8ce1 in sp_root_update (object=0x9ac4410, ctx=0xbf88b648, flags=27) at sp-root.cpp:553
#13 0x080d8856 in SPObject::updateDisplay (this=0x9ac4410, ctx=0xbf88b648, flags=27) at sp-object.cpp:1298
#14 0x0808c038 in SPDocument::_updateDocument (this=0x965bea0) at document.cpp:826
#15 0x0808c132 in sp_document_idle_handler (data=0x965bea0) at document.cpp:872
#16 0xb73b9381 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#17 0x0965bea0 in ?? ()
#18 0x0c410bf0 in ?? ()
#19 0xbf88b718 in ?? ()
#20 0xb74364a8 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#21 0xb686a3f0 in ?? () from /lib/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0
#22 0xb74364a8 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#23 0xbf88b768 in ?? ()
#24 0xb73bb2e1 in g_main_context_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
Backtrace stopped: frame did not save the PC
Other related details: the culprit is LC_CTYPE, looks like something (our font handler or pango) goes wrong when it is set to chinese. Inkscape crashes in similar ways in other points of libnrtype, too. Chinese .po contains a character for the open dialog translation which always trigger the crash. I'm trying a patch to prevent the crash, but I can't understand why it fails to get proper faces under chinese.