Xorg crashed with SIGSEGV in XkbWriteXKBGeometry()

[Tim Allen]

1) I'm using the Hardy Heron beta.
2) I'm apparently using Xorg 1:7.3+10ubuntu7.

I'm running Ubuntu on an Apple MacBook. When I originally installed Gutsy, it defaulted to the PC-104-key keyboard layout, and the Default USA keymap. However, I prefer Dvorak, and in order to get it to work properly I removed the USA Default keymap and left USA Dvorak as the only keymap.

Later I upgrade to Hardy, and as I'm looking through the new Keyboard control panel I see that there's now an Apple MacBook/MacBook Pro keyboard layout, and I switch to it (without messing with my Dvorak keymap). I get a message along the lines of 'XKB can't load layout', but my keyboard seems to work the way I want it to, so I continue.

A reboot later, and I discover that my keyboard has reverted to QWERTY. Inspecting the Keyboard control panel, I see that Dvorak is still the only keymap available. I decide that if I add the real QWERTY keymap back, I ought to be able to switch to it and maybe when I switch back, Dvorak will work.

I click the "Add" button at the bottom of the Keyboard control panel to add a new keymap, and... nothing. Mouse freezes. Screen goes black (although the mouse cursor is still visible). Ctrl-Alt-Backspace does nothing. I wind up having to hold the power-button for four seconds to reboot the machine.

I have it working now - I changed the keyboard layout back to PC-104-key before I messed with keymaps again.

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: amd64
CrashCounter: 1
Date: Thu Apr 10 19:33:52 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/Xorg
Package: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.4.1~git20080131-1ubuntu6
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/X :0 -br -audit 0 -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
Signal: 11
SourcePackage: xorg-server
StacktraceTop:
 XkbWriteXKBGeometry ()
 XkbWriteXKBKeymapForNames ()
 XkbDDXLoadKeymapByNames ()
 ProcXkbGetKbdByName ()
 Dispatch ()
Title: Xorg crashed with SIGSEGV in XkbWriteXKBGeometry()
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-15-generic x86_64
UserGroups:

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:XkbWriteXKBKeymapForNames (file=0xbcb2c0, names=0x7fffcaf0f760, dpy=<value optimized out>,
XkbDDXLoadKeymapByNames (keybd=<value optimized out>, names=0x7fffcaf0f760, want=127, need=60,
ProcXkbGetKbdByName (client=0xbff3c0) at ../../xkb/xkb.c:5198
Dispatch () at ../../dix/dispatch.c:502
main (argc=10, argv=0x7fffcaf10e88, envp=<value optimized out>) at ../../dix/main.c:452

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Do you still get the same crash with current Hardy? Seems related to bug 184651.

[Tim Allen (screwtape)]

Following the reproduction steps in the first comment, I no longer get the crash.

I still can't achieve the results I wanted (A MacBook keyboard layout with Dvorak keymap) because of the "Error activating XKB configuration" message I alluded to above, but at least the X server doesn't crash.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Ok, marked this as a dupe of the other bug. You could file another one about the error you get, or check if there are reports about it already.