irssi segfaults sometimes when using irssi-plugin-xmpp

[Vin Shankar]

When attempting to connect to a jabber.org XMPP account, irssi first spends about a minute on "looking up jabber.org", and then segfaults. This makes it impossible to use XMPP accounts at that domain.

irssi also segfaults apparently at random when connected to other XMPP servers. The only one I have yet noticed to produce the segfault reliably quickly was jabber.org, however. Use of gdb does suggest that the error was the same in both cases.

This is not Bug 642751; it happens even when forcing an IPv4 connection.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: irssi-plugin-xmpp 0.51+cvs20100627-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-31.50-generic 3.2.28
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-31-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu13
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Oct 12 09:37:01 2012
ProcEnviron:
 LC_CTYPE=C
 TERM=screen
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
SourcePackage: irssi-plugin-xmpp
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-23 (142 days ago)

[Florian Schlichting (fschlich)]

Hi,

unfortunately, the version of irssi-plugin-xmpp in precise is rather old. Version 0.52, released in February 2012, is an important bugfix release. Could you try again with the version in quantal? (e.g., download via http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/irssi-plugin-xmpp and install with 'sudo dpkg -i <package>', the dependencies seem to match so it should "just work")

Florian

[Vin Shankar (v-shankar)]

Package installation went just fine, but the problem persists, unfortunately.

[Vin Shankar (v-shankar)]

I've been experiencing another segfault at random intervals (on the order of a day or two), so I've been running with a gdb attached, and I've just found that it's producing the same error when it dies. I conclude that the problem is not /exclusive/ to jabber.org, but can be reliably triggered by an attempt to connect to it.

[Florian Schlichting (fschlich)]

hmm, I cannot reproduce this - connecting to jabber.org works for me on both IPv4 and IPv6. Care to share the backtrace?

BTW, unless there's an issue with your DNS, it shouldn't take very long "looking up jabber.org"...

[Florian Schlichting (fschlich)]

is this still an issue? can you provide a backtrace please?

[Vin Shankar (v-shankar)]

I have since moved to Debian Testing, so I don't have an Ubuntu box with which to see if this is a continuing problem. In the package versions provided there (irssi 0.8.17-1+b2; -plugin-xmpp 0.52+git20140102-3) it at least doesn't happen immediately on connect to jabber.org, which was formerly the only reliable method I had of producing the crash. I will leave it connected for a while and see if the random crash still happens - expect a definitive answer in a few days, including a backtrace if it does - but the consistent one is gone for me. Of course, it's possible that there's some Ubuntu-specific patch that will render my results useless...

[Florian Schlichting (fschlich)]

Thank you for the quick reply. irssi-plugin-xmpp doesn't have any Ubuntu-specific patches currently and didn't have them in precise or trusty (can't check for older versions easily just now). So things should be the same in Debian and Ubuntu, as far as this package is concerned. Other packages may have had differences. But if you're unable to reproduce the crash, I'd say let's close this bug and open a new one for new or similar problems in the future.

BTW Debian testing has irssi-plugin-xmpp 0.52+git201601... coming in a few days, bringing Message Carbons as a new goody, so you may not want to let it run for too long :-)