Comment 142 for bug 507089

(In reply to Martin Baute from comment #90)
> Chiming in with the info that I first encountered this bug in Mint 13
> (Ubuntu Precise), and it still applies in Mint 17 (Ubuntu Trusty). And while
> I can understand all the issues involved with deciding the "right way to
> go", I am somewhat miffed to find that a decade-old bug still expresses
> itself as a SIGSEGV. Expecting the user to strace / google / eventually find
> this bug entry if he's lucky? Is it really that difficult to check for the
> condition and at least give a meaningful message (perhaps including a
> workaround recommendation) before exiting gracefully?

It is a constant of Electronic Data Processing that no program is bug-free before it is obsolete. Even once a bug is identified, fixing it is not always easy. Complaining that "after so many years, no fix has been found" doesn't push the bug any nearer to be fixed, while it adds to the lot of useless rubbish (please excuse my language) that developers must wade through in order to find what the problem really is.

Another constant of EDP is that there are never enough coding hands do do all that needs doing, even when, as at Mozilla, a lot of volunteers selflessly donate part of their time to help the people whose paid job it is to try and fix these bugs. Any help is always welcome, and the code is anyone's to look into.

Do you know how to fix the bug? Good! Write a patch, ASSIGN the bug to yourself, find an appropriate reviewer by browsing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules and off you go. Once you get a positive review, set the checkin-needed flag, and someone will push your patch into the permanent source.

You mean you don't know how to fix the patch? Ah, too bad. Neither do I. So let us wait patiently, even years if that's what it takes, until someone comes around who does, and in the meantime let's have a look at the "rules of the house", https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html