This apparently a common problem among most Linux distros. I'm adding a bug to the gentoo bugzilla in case someone has some insight or is experiencing the same problem. Further information can be found on the StepMania board here: http://www.stepmania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6782 and on the Ubuntu board here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=117918 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Start StepMania 2. Select a song that has an AVI file associated with it 3. emerge --info Portage 2.1.6.7 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.2.4, glibc-2.9_p20081201-r1, 2.6.24-gentoo-r3 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.24-gentoo-r3-x86_64-Intel-R-_Pentium-R-_D_CPU_2.80GHz-with-glibc2.2.5 Timestamp of tree: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:05:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p48 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7-r1, 2.1.6-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.3.6-r2, 2.4.4-r4, 2.5.2-r8 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 dev-util/cmake: 2.6.2-r1 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.0 sys-apps/openrc: 0.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.3.2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.63 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.19 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6a virtual/os-headers: 2.6.28-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O3 -march=nocona" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=nocona" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_US" LC_ALL="en_US" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="en" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage/layman/desktop-effects" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X a52 aac aalib acl acpi aim alsa amd64 audiofile avahi berkdb bluetooth branding browserplugin bzip2 cairo cdinstall cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dri dts dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss emul-linux-x86 encode evo exif fam ffmpeg firefox flac fortran ftp gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal iconv ipv6 isdnlog java jpeg kde ldap libcaca libnotify lirc log4j mad matroska midi mikmod mmx mono mp3 mpeg msn mudflap multilib mysql ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin nvidia offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl openmp pam pcre pda pdf perl png ppds pppd python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime readline reflection rtc samba sdl seamonkey session spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg sysfs tcpd theora tiff tracker truetype unicode usb vcd vorbis wmf xinerama xml xorg xscreensaver xulrunner xv xvid yahoo zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en" LIRC_DEVICES="logitech" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
Created attachment 179121 [details] StepMania crash information output
Doesn't seem gentoo-specific though so I'll mark this bug UPSTREAM so people look there.
Unfortunately, upstream will not look at this old version of stepmania anymore. I have contacted them in IRC and they said stepmania 3.9 is not being maintained anymore.
*** Bug 268974 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I've experienced this bug as well, but the binary provided by stepmania.com works perfectly for some reason, which leads me to believe this is not an upstream problem. The Gentoo package has slightly better performace when not crashing, though, so it would be nice to see this fixed.
This is because the stepmania binary package using an ancient version of ffmpeg, which is unavailable on gentoo portage tree since years ago.
