Arch Linux

Shapeshifter

Member

Registered: 2008-03-11

Posts: 231

Weird segfaults!

I installed arch on a friends box and it's running well, but some of the apps are segfaulting for some very strange reason.

For example, ario (a gui frontend to mpd) segfaults almost every time he clicks a very specific field in the options. I have the same version of ario installed on my box and I don't have this problem. Furthermore firestarter (a gui frontend to iptables) segfaults at random after a few minutes. Some other apps also segfault at random.

He has already run memtest for some 27 hours without detecting anything. It's a celeron (conroe) budget cpu on an itx board with a lot of SiS chips on it (including graphics and such).

Any idea why this is happening? Any hints on how to track down the cause?

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Weird segfaults!

It might be worth it to try changing gtk theme...

Denacke

Member

Registered: 2008-04-09

Posts: 106

Re: Weird segfaults!

Well I also have had many issues with firestarter and segfaults (haven't been using it for months now though), haven't used ario so can't tell with that.

So might be the apps after all? I'm running an Intel Pentium M (laptop)

string

Member

Registered: 2008-11-03

Posts: 286

Re: Weird segfaults!

Just goes to show: make sure you can take on the heat before you install Linux on your friend's computer. Alas:

Any idea why this is happening? Any hints on how to track down the cause?

Make it so that you get some core dumps, fire up gdb.

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,563

Re: Weird segfaults!

Random segfaults are a very good indicator of hardware failure. I would do some checks pronto. Run Memtest+ a couple times, try some CPU benchmarks/burn-ins, etc. A segfault at a specific point usually means a bug (or if you compiled it yourself, problem with the compile? Don't know if that's likely), but random often seems to be hardware-related.