It seems that somehow it is trying to render the banner ad before the download has completed. (Once the images are cached locally it is required to clear out the software center cache, to be able to reproduce the crash)
rm ~/.cache/software-center/piston-helper/*
software-center (crashes on startup)
software-center (loads correctly on the second run)
Removing that above line from the code will avoid the crash on startup.
I have tracked this down to what appears to be a race condition triggered by
http:// bazaar. launchpad. net/~ubuntu- branches/ ubuntu/ saucy/software- center/ saucy/view/ head:/softwarec enter/ui/ gtk3/views/ lobbyview. py#L162
It seems that somehow it is trying to render the banner ad before the download has completed. (Once the images are cached locally it is required to clear out the software center cache, to be able to reproduce the crash)
rm ~/.cache/ software- center/ piston- helper/ *
software-center (crashes on startup)
software-center (loads correctly on the second run)
Removing that above line from the code will avoid the crash on startup.