conky seg faults if launched shortly after reboot

[Brandon Mayes]

After my upgrade to 12.04 I have noticed that conky 1.8.1-6 will seg fault when started. Oddly enough, if you simply wait "long enough" (maybe 5 or 10 minutes after logging in) then it starts just fine. The problem is easily reproducible on my systems (2 64-bit systems that have both recently been upgraded to Precise). All I did was:

1. Upgrade existing system (with conky package) to 12.04
2. login to gnome (I'm using gnome shell but I believe it also happens in Unity)
3. hit ALT+F2 and attempt to launch conky

I had it core dump and this is the backtrace that I got from gdb. I didn't attach it due to the size of the file (27MB), and the fact that it is easily reproducible:

(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f3d32579cb1 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f3d32579856 in strndup () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#2 0x000000000043587f in ?? ()
#3 0x000000000042f789 in ?? ()
#4 0x000000000043dd20 in ?? ()
#5 0x000000000042b0e3 in ?? ()
#6 0x000000000042f5af in ?? ()
#7 0x0000000000434fbc in ?? ()
#8 0x0000000000408b63 in ?? ()
#9 0x00007f3d3251276d in __libc_start_main ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#10 0x0000000000408b99 in ?? ()
#11 0x00007fffcd2be5a8 in ?? ()
#12 0x000000000000001c in ?? ()
#13 0x0000000000000001 in ?? ()
#14 0x00007fffcd2bf48f in ?? ()
#15 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()

I'm not sure if the problem occurs with a fresh install of Precise. It may be the case that a fresh install followed by apt-get install conky will work fine. Both of my systems were upgrades (clean 11.04 install, then upgrade to 11.10 followed by 12.04). Again, if you simply wait for a while (not sure how long) then conky starts up without issue.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: conky 1.8.1-6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed May 23 18:45:55 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: conky
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-29 (24 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Vincent Cheng (vincent-c)]

Does upgrading to conky 1.9.0-2 (available in precise-backports) fix this problem?

[n1c0la5 (n1c0la5)]

Hello
upgrading conky to 1.9.0-2 does not fix the bug here. But I've downloading conky-all 1.9.0-2 for quantal and it works on precise, and now I have no bug.

[derklempner (derklempner)]

I had the same issue as Brandon, and upgrading to conky-1.9.0-2 fixed the issue for me. It also seems to have stopped indicator-weather from crashing regularly.

[Serrano Pereira (serrano-pereira)]

Upgrading to conky 1.9.0-2 (from precise-backports) does seem to fix this problem. I rebooted only twice to test this, but 9 out of 10 times it would crash. I'll report back it crashes again.

[Brandon Mayes (bdmayes)]

I can confirm that using 1.9.0-2 from precise-backports resolves the issue. I have installed that on both systems where it was failing and after rebooting they both seem to fire up conky immediately after login without fault. Thanks!

[Vincent Cheng (vincent-c)]

Great, glad to hear that conky 1.9 fixes the problem. I'll leave this bug as "Confirmed" so that precise users can find out about this bug, and avoid filing duplicates.

I'm unsure of whether this bug is enough to qualify for a SRU, rather than just a backport. This bug will reliably cause a segfault in conky 1.8.1-6 as long as 2 conditions hold:
1) execi/execpi is used in the user's conkyrc file
2) execi/execpi's interval is less than current system uptime (which is why conky crashes at startup)

I've linked the upstream bug report (http://sourceforge.net/support/tracker.php?aid=3432429); the fix for this, aside from upgrading to conky 1.9.0-2 (which is out of the scope of a SRU), should be to apply the following patch (already committed to upstream git repository):

http://git.omp.am/?p=conky.git;a=commitdiff;h=742dbbffaa38627195ca69e41d3d30def1ff9da5

Either way, I don't have time to persue a SRU at the moment anyways. For anyone who thinks this bug justifies a SRU, the process is outlined here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

(As an aside, n1c0la5, the binary "conky" package is only a transitional package (upgrading it won't do anything); you need to install one of conky-cli, conky-std, or conky-all.)

[FuzzyQ (atomicfuzzyq)]

>> Vincent Cheng
"As an aside, n1c0la5, the binary "conky" package is only a transitional package (upgrading it won't do anything); you need to install one of conky-cli, conky-std, or conky-all."

Sorry, I don't get that. I downloaded the source code, compiled and installed the package. Obviously, that did only install the transitional package which didn't fix the bug :/

Where am I supposed to get the 1.9.0-2 version of conky-all? I'm completely lost...

[Serrano Pereira (serrano-pereira)]

atomicfuzzyq,

Here's how I did it:
1) Install an run Synaptic package manager (synaptic).
2) Using synaptic, enable the precise-backports repository (Settings > Repositories > Updates). Then hit the Reload button.
3) Using synaptic, search for package "conky-std". Left-click on it, then Package > Force Version > select the version from precise-backports.
4) Hit "Apply" to install the update.

Finally, run `conky --version` from the terminal to verify that you're running the right version.

[FuzzyQ (atomicfuzzyq)]

>> Serrano Pereira

*rotfl* Well, wasn't that WAY easier than my approach?
Thanks for letting me feel like an idiot. :/

No, fun aside, thank you very much for taking the time to beat me to it!
One more problem down. Perfect.

[florin (florin-arjocu)]

You can install it in Software Center, you don't need Synaptic for that. In the right side of the window, just on the left of Install/Change button, there is a select box where you can change the version. Default it is 1.8.x and you have there "1.9.0 (precise-backports)" as backport.

Of course, backports should be first enabled.