Geary sometimes crashes when I open an unread mail

[Jeroen]

It happens quite often, I'm just going trough all my new emails and then sudden it just stops responding, freezes for a moment and then it quits.

Last lines of the debug screen (unedited except for my email, if you need it further back I can supply that.):

 [deb] 21:38:26 0,000043 app-email-store.vala:219: EmailStore Other:<email address hidden> done running GearyAppListOperation on 2 emails
 [deb] 21:38:26 0,007535 app-email-store.vala:160: EmailStore Other:<email address hidden> running GearyAppMarkOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:26 0,035928 app-email-store.vala:182: EmailStore opening Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=2 remote_opened=true) for GearyAppMarkOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:26 0,000005 imap-engine-minimal-folder.vala:543: Not opening Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=3 remote_opened=true): already open
 [deb] 21:38:27 0,263536 app-email-store.vala:193: EmailStore closed Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=2 remote_opened=true) after GearyAppMarkOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:27 0,000027 app-email-store.vala:219: EmailStore Other:<email address hidden> done running GearyAppMarkOperation on 1 emails

(geary:6534): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(geary:6534): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pantheon-filechooser-module"

(firefox:6670): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",

(firefox:6670): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",

(firefox:6670): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",

(firefox:6670): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",

(firefox:6670): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",
 [deb] 21:38:28 1,475536 imap-engine-generic-account.vala:340: Refreshing unseen counts for Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=2 remote_opened=true)
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
 [deb] 21:38:31 2,875271 app-email-store.vala:160: EmailStore Other:<email address hidden> running GearyAppListOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:31 0,038935 geary-controller.vala:2740: Error checking for what operations are supported in the selected conversations: Async transaction cancelled
 [deb] 21:38:31 0,000249 app-email-store.vala:182: EmailStore opening Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=2 remote_opened=true) for GearyAppListOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:31 0,000005 imap-engine-minimal-folder.vala:543: Not opening Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=3 remote_opened=true): already open
 [deb] 21:38:31 0,003927 app-email-store.vala:193: EmailStore closed Other:<email address hidden>:INBOX (open_count=2 remote_opened=true) after GearyAppListOperation on 1 emails
 [deb] 21:38:31 0,000030 app-email-store.vala:219: EmailStore Other:<email address hidden> done running GearyAppListOperation on 1 emails
fixme:advapi:UnregisterTraceGuids deadbeef: stub
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Also a note:

I'm using the pipelight for silverlight plugin, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it, but it mentions something about it at the start of the backtrace (I'm not acualy using the pipelight plugin in Geary, I'm only using it in Firefox. It gets autoloaded):

[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] attached to process.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] checking environment variable PIPELIGHT_SILVERLIGHT5_1_CONFIG.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] searching for config file pipelight-silverlight5.1.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/home/jeroen/.config/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/etc/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/usr/share/pipelight/configs/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] sandbox not found or not installed!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] using wine prefix directory /home/jeroen/.wine-pipelight.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] checking plugin installation - this might take some time.
[install-dependency] wine-silverlight5.1-installer is already installed in '/home/jeroen/.wine-pipelight'.
[install-dependency] wine-mpg2splt-installer is already installed in '/home/jeroen/.wine-pipelight'.
fixme:winediag:start_process Wine Staging 1.9.6 is a testing version containing experimental patches.
fixme:winediag:start_process Please mention your exact version when filing bug reports on winehq.org.
wine: DLL not found.
err:wineboot:ProcessRunKeys Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -a -r" (1157)
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] embedded mode is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] windowless mode is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] linux windowless mode is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] force SetWindow is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] window class hook is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] strict draw ordering is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExA.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExW.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenuEx.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenu.
fixme:ntdll:EtwRegisterTraceGuidsW (0x7021a7, 0x7a0120, {aa087e0e-0b35-4e28-8f3a-440c3f51eef1}, 1, 0x68f628, (null), (null), 0x7a0120): stub
fixme:ntdll:EtwRegisterTraceGuidsW register trace class {aa087e0e-0b35-4e28-8f3a-440c3f51eef1}
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] init successful!
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] OpenGL Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] Your GPU is in the whitelist, hardware acceleration should work.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] using thread asynccall event handling.

[Peter Buck (pbuck)]

Starting 7/20/2016, Geary crashes when attempting to delete message from IMAP inbox. I'll be happy to supply whatever debugging aids if you tell me how to do so. Contact me at pbuck at his.com

[Peter Buck (pbuck)]

To clarify, problems occur with only about 5-10% of the messages, but at least some messages cause Geary to crash every time I try to delete them. I can delete those messages in an online email client.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Hi Peter, thanks for reporting this bug.

To debug this, I'll need you to obtain and attach a stack trace per the instructions here: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary/ReportingABug#Stack_Trace

I'll also some information about your system: Distro and version, desktop environment and version, GTK and WebKitGTK library versions.

[Peter Buck (pbuck)]

Created attachment 331897
Debugging session including stack trace of geary crash

Thanks, Michael. Attached is the stack trace from trying to delete one of the messages that cause the crash.

I'm running ubuntu 16.04, pretty vanilla. I don't know how to gather the version information you requested. Please advise me if you need more details than I've provided.

[MonsterLord (monsterlord)]

I've got the same problem of Peter. Since the previous version of geary every time I try to delete messages from the inbox section, the program stucks and then crashes. If I delte only a message and then i navigate through my other email account everything goes right but if I try to delete 2 or 3 messages in a row it crashes...
I use geary on elementary os 0.3
Any suggestion??? please notify by email your suggestion (<email address hidden>)

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Peter, thanks for the stack trace. From that, since the crash is occurring in WebKitGTK, it might be the same issue as Bug 750048. I occasionally see something like this as well, and am pretty sure it is indeed a WebKitGTK bug.

If so, you can work around it by selecting a different message that you also want to delete first, then selecting this problematic message, and then deleting them both.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Luca, thanks for the extra information. Does the workaround I just above in comment 5 help?

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

*** Bug 750048 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

The crash is a bug in WebKitGTK. It is triggered in ConversationViewer, by both conversation_viewer_clear and conversation_viewer_remove_message. It occurs when the message's root DOM node is removed from the web view, and seems to depend on something specific to the messages involved.

After trying a few obvious workarounds (setting the parent node's inner_html to "", moving the node to a different parent instead of removing it) it is still crashing. Some investigation into the specific nature of the messages that are causing the crash is probably needed to work out what the actual issue is. I'll attach a few here in case someone wants to try to work out what they have in common.

If nothing else, this will be fixed when Bug 765516 lands for 0.12, but a fix for this would be great to have for 0.11.x as well.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Created attachment 332498
Example message that reliably triggers this bug.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Created attachment 332499
Decoded HTML from message in Bug 750048 that reportedly also causes the crash

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Created attachment 332500
Decoded HTML from example that reliably triggers the bug

Decode the Q-P encoding for clarity.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Created attachment 332501
Decoded HTML from message in Bug 750048 that reportedly also causes the crash

Clean up line endings for clarity

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

*** Bug 751656 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

The stack trace from Bug 751656 indicates one instance of the crash is occurring in WebCore::RenderTableCell::borderLeft(), which is called from WebCore::RenderBoxModelObject::localCaretRectForEmptyElement() so it may have something to do with borders on table cells, and/or maybe on empty table cells?

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Turns out WebKitGTK+ 2.4.x at least will crash if you remove an element that has nested tables, and the nested table has cells with some border set. Removing the cell's contents in reverse order will prevent the crash from occurring.

A workaround has been pushed to master as 36a35f9. It fixes the crash for the message that was causing the crash for me. If anyone can also test it out, please let me know if it also fixes the problem for you.

I'll cherry pick this for the geary-0.11 branch a bit later once it hasn't shown to cause any performance regressions.

[Bayacasim (bayacasim)]

Hello,

I've been having this issue for months now, it happens really often to the point of making it unusable.

Terminal output when crashes is a simple "Segmentation fault (core dumped)".

Full terminal output after a 5 minutes session:

No bp log location saved, using default.
[000:000] Cpu: 6.58.9, x4, 3800Mhz, 7926MB
[000:000] Computer model: Not available
[000:001] Browser XEmbed support present: 1
[000:001] Browser toolkit is Gtk2.
[000:002] Using Gtk2 toolkit
No bp log location saved, using default.
[000:000] Cpu: 6.58.9, x4, 3800Mhz, 7926MB
[000:000] Computer model: Not available
[000:033] Warning(optionsfile.cc:30): Load: Could not open file, err=2
[000:033] No bp log location saved, using default.
[000:034] Cpu: 6.58.9, x4, 3800Mhz, 7926MB
[000:034] Computer model: Not available
[000:034] Browser XEmbed support present: 1
[000:034] Browser toolkit is Gtk2.
[000:034] Using Gtk2 toolkit
[000:037] Warning(optionsfile.cc:30): Load: Could not open file, err=2
[000:037] No bp log location saved, using default.
[000:038] Cpu: 6.58.9, x4, 3800Mhz, 7926MB
[000:038] Computer model: Not available

(geary:4376): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(geary:4376): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(geary:4376): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(geary:4376): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pantheon-filechooser-module"
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Created new window in existing browser session.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

This has been pushed to the stable geary-0.11 branch as 52fe9b6. Resolving as fixed.

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Hi all, this sounds like upstream bug 769010 (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=769010), which was fixed in Geary 0.11.2, available from the Geary Team PPA: https://launchpad.net/~geary-team/+archive/ubuntu/releases

Can you please try that version and see if it fixes this issue for you?

If not, we'll need a stack trace https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary/ReportingABug#Stack_Trace to be able to debug and fix this problem.

Ta!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

*** Bug 779373 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Michael Gratton (mjog)]

Per comment #2 I'd need a stack trace to work this out, so resolving as incomplete for the moment. If someone can produce a stack trace, please report it over in GitLab: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/geary

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Upstream report closed "RESOLVED FIXED" on 2016-08-016
Last report of a crash was almost four years ago
No response to comment #4 after almost a year
Closing as fixed in Ubuntu which now has version 3.36.1-1 (focal)
--
Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]