Crash When Combining Text Objects Into Single Path

[Quartz]

I discovered this consistently repeatable crash on Inkscape 0.46-devel SVN r20288 for Fedora 9. I wasn't sure if I should wait a revision or two before reporting this, so I did just in case.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Create two text objects.
2. Both selected, Combine Paths. (Presumably the same as Convert To Path -> Combine.)
3. Bang.

I noted that, when I reopened the emergency save file, it had successfully converted the text to paths and had left them uncombined.

Backtrace attached.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

- running Win32 nightly build rev 20225, I get a crash with the exit message below :
- this occurs if I select Path | Combine first, on the original two texts, before converting anything to a path.
- if I use Path | Object to Path first, on each text separately, then there is no crash when I use Combine

..................................................
C:\Python25\APP>inkcl.py
return code: -1073741819

** (inkscape.exe:3724): CRITICAL **: SPObject* sp_object_ref(SPObject*, SPObject
*): assertion `object != NULL' failed

[Quartz (quartz)]

I should point out that I've combined multiple text objects straight to a path probably hundreds of times on the Inkscape 0.46 RPM for Fedora 9, and I never saw the crash until I built it from Subversion.

One primary difference I noticed was that a text object when converted to a path now produces a group, each character being a path within the group, instead of producing one path with many subpaths that make up the letters.

This of course makes simply combining them fail, even if you did convert them to paths manually. For the same results you now have to Ungroup them after the conversion and before Combining them: Convert To Path -> Ungroup -> Combine Paths.

I don't know if this provides any insight into what's causing the crash or not. Could it be a simple oversight in the addition of that feature? (Although that wouldn't explain why Mr. Penner was just able to reproduce it on a version before the change, would it?)

I don't know what the most ideal behavior under these circumstances WOULD be, but it certainly shouldn't segfault.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

the change in behaviour occurred between Oct 13 (rev 19989) and Nov 10 (rev 20168), using Win32 nightly builds

On the Nov 10 build, if you use Path | Object to Path, then a new group is formed with the id of "flowRootxxxx", which did not happen previously.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

it looks like the change occurred around Oct 26, see :

http://www.nabble.com/NEW%3A-Converting-text-to-path-produces-a-group-td20170713.html

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

fixed in rev 20410