Variety causes sgefault in libexiv

[Jazzicatz]

Sometimes Variety crashes due to a segfault in libexiv.

This is in syslog:
variety[2093]: segfault at 3f ip b440a58a sp b15fdf70 error 6 in libexiv2.so.11.0.0[b42cc000+1ed000]

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Please provide more information - what Linux are you running it on and what are the installed versions of Variety, python and python-pyexiv2. Basically, with such a segfault there is not much I can do - it can be some problem in the version of the exiv2 library on your machine, or some incompatibility between library versions, or something else.

[Jazzicatz (jessicatz-fairymeadow-gmail)]

Here are the versions I'm running:

Ubuntu 12.04 32bit
Variety 0.4.9
Python 2.7.3 (default, Aug 1 2012, 05:16:07) [GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
python-pyexiv2 0.3.2-1
libexiv2-11 0.22-2

I have no idea what causes it, or how to reproduce it. I guess it happens when loading a corrupted image from the online sources, but I can't be sure until.
Is there a log that's being written before it attempts to download a wallpaper? Maybe that can help.

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Same versions as mine, only you're on a 32bit Ubuntu.

No log file is written, you have to run variety in a terminal with -v: /opt/extras.ubuntu.com/variety/bin/variety -v
You should be able to see which image is being set or which image URL is downloaded before it crashes.

Does it happen during a download (when Variety is using exiv2 to write metadata to the downloaded file) or while changing the wallpaper (when Variety reads the metadata) ?

My other suggestion is to try the trunk version of Variety (it's easy: https://answers.launchpad.net/variety/+faq/2094) - I made some changes there to the naming of downloaded files - the code now properly url-unquotes names and uses only filesystem safe symbols - there is some small chance this might fix it.

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Jazzicatz , did you try the suggestions above, can you provide any additional info?

[Jazzicatz (jessicatz-fairymeadow-gmail)]

No, but the issue didn't reappear since last time, so...

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Marking this Invalid for now, we'll reopen if it appears again and can be reproduced more reliably.

[BuM (bumaw)]

[ 174.071946] variety[6177]: segfault at ffffffffffffffeb ip 00007fa27329b4df sp 00007fa27121faf0 error 5
[ 174.071960] variety[5877]: segfault at ffffffffffffffeb ip 00007fa27329b4df sp 00007fffb07c1db0 error 5 in libexiv2.so.13.0.0[7fa273120000+26d000]
[ 174.071975] in libexiv2.so.13.0.0[7fa273120000+26d000]

[BuM (bumaw)]

variety 0.5.4
python 2.7.9-1
libexiv2-12 0.23-1ubuntu2
libexiv2-13:amd64 0.24-4.1
Linux 3.19.0-29-generic #31-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 16:56:41 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 15.04
Release: 15.04
Codename: vivid