Comment 3 for bug 1050907

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.