Bug 181746 – net-im/pidgin crashes on startup because of invalid entries in ~/.purple/prefs.xml

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Renat Golubchyk 2007-06-12 13:02:59 UTC]

Hi!

There is an issue I've encountered both with pidgin-2.0.0 and and 2.0.1. When I receive a file over ICQ (I don't use anything else actually) sometimes the target folder, where the file was saved, is not getting saved to ~/.purple/prefs.xml. When I start pidgin the next time it segfaults while parsing prefs.xml. The corrupted tag looks like this:

  <pref name='last_save_folder' type='path'/>

instead of

  <pref name='last_save_folder' type='path' value='PATH TO THE FOLDER'/>

As you see the value-attribute is missing, which forces pidgin to crash while validating an empty string (see attached backtrace). The crash actually happens in GLIB in g_utf8_validate(), but, as I understand it, GLIB does nothing wrong.

I don't think, my USE-flags would help in any way, but just in case here is my portage configuration:


$ emerge --info
Portage 2.1.2.9 (default-linux/x86/2007.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r3, 2.6.21-suspend2-r5 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.21-suspend2-r5 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.10
Timestamp of tree: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 03:20:01 +0000
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1
dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
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
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.23b
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.21
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirror/ http://mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/ http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo"
LANG="en_US"
LINGUAS="en de ru uk"
MAKEOPTS="-j1"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="   "
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="7zip X a52 aac aalib acpi alsa bash-completion berkdb binfilter blas bluetooth bzip2 cairo cardbus cdda cddb cdparanoia cdr clamav cli cracklib crypt css cups curl dbus dga dillo directfb distribution djvu dpms dri dts dv dvd dvdread ecc edl encode evo exif expat faad fam fbcon ffmpeg fftw firefox flac fontconfig foomaticdb fortran fpx ftp gb gcj gd gdbm gif gimp gimpprint glade glut gmp gnutls gpm gs gtk hal hddtemp i8x0 iconv icq id3 ieee1394 imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 isdnlog jabber java javamail javascript jbig jpeg junit jython lame lapack lcd lcms libcaca libg++ lzo lzw lzw-tiff m17n-lib mad maildir math matroska md5sum mhash midi mikmod mime mjpeg mmx mng mozdevelop mozilla moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mozsvg mp3 mpeg mplayer mudflap musicbrainz ncurses network nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg opengl openmp optional-tasks oro oscar oss pam pcmcia pcre pdf perl plotutils png pnp ppds print python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime readline real reflection samba sdl session silc sox speex spell sse sse-filters sse2 ssl svg syslog t1lib tcpd tetex theora tidy tiff timidity transcode truetype truetype-fonts trusted type1 type1-fonts unicode usb userlocales v4l v4l2 vcd vim vim-syntax vorbis wifi win32codecs wma wmf x264 x86 xanim xface xinerama xml xorg xosd xpm xv xvid xvmc yahoo yv12 zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 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 mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en de ru uk" LIRC_DEVICES="serial sir devinput" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon vesa"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS


I use a few of pidgin plugins, but none of them should interfere with pidgin's prefs-saving code.

[Comment 1 Renat Golubchyk 2007-06-12 13:07:01 UTC]

Created attachment 121803 [details]
backtrace

A backtrace of the segfault. Pidgin and GLib were compiled with debug USE-flag set , "nostrip" in FEATURES and '-ggdb' in CFLAGS.

[Comment 2 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2007-06-12 17:26:18 UTC]

Try your luck upstream, doesn't look like a Gentoo-specific bug at all.

http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/BugTracking

[Comment 3 Renat Golubchyk 2007-06-12 18:05:39 UTC]

I know that and my first move was to submit the bug upstream. But considering this ewarn message:

> If you experience problems with pidgin, file them as bugs with
> Gentoo's bugzilla, http://bugs.gentoo.org.  DO NOT report them
> as bugs with pidgin's bug tracker, and by all means DO NOT
> seek help in #pidgin.

I submitted it here. I know, gaim developers didn't like Gentoo users in the past (can't find the relevant bug right now), that's why this warning was introduced into gaim ebuilds. If it is obsolete now then the maintainers should remove it from future versions.

Because of that I'm reopening the bug now. Somebody in the know should say if the qouted warning is still up-to-date.

[Comment 4 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2007-06-12 18:21:36 UTC]

(In reply to comment #3)
> I submitted it here. I know, gaim developers didn't like Gentoo users in the
> past (can't find the relevant bug right now), that's why this warning was
> introduced into gaim ebuilds

Must be definitely mutual, searching bugzilla for gaim/pidgin and crash/segfault pretty much documents the quality of upstream code. :P

http://tinyurl.com/2nedty

I really don't see how's this one a Gentoo bug, sorry. If the ebuild needs such warnings due to upstream attitude, maybe it should be just removed from the tree.

[Comment 5 Olivier Crete (RETIRED) 2007-06-12 18:30:43 UTC]

please report upstream.

[Comment 6 Renat Golubchyk 2007-06-12 18:35:16 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I really don't see how's this one a Gentoo bug, sorry.

It is not a Gentoo bug and nowhere did I say that. But it looks like the net-im herd doesn't want the users to submit bugs upstream on their own.

> If the ebuild needs such warnings due to upstream attitude,
> maybe it should be just removed from the tree.

Whether pidgin should be in the tree is an entirely different question. Personally, I don't think it should be removed since there are way too many people using it.