[LAU] amarok crashes

Kevin Cosgrove kevinc at cosgroves.us
Tue Aug 24 18:40:39 UTC 2010


On 24 August 2010 at 12:02, "Gabriel M. Beddingfield" <gabrbedd at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Aug 2010, Kevin Cosgrove wrote:
> > I've been having trouble with amarok crashes; every 8-10 songs I
> > get a segfault.  This is primarily on one of my computers, the
> 
> Which audio engine are you using?

Amarok tells me that I'm using PulseAudio with GStreamer.

> > What can I do folk?  How can I troubleshoot this?  I've already
> > changed out nearly all the hardware (for other reasons) and nearly
> > all the software.
> 
> The first thing you need is a backtrace.  Unfortunately, 
> I've found that getting a half-way decent backtrace on 
> modern distros is a big PITA.  I usually do it like this:
> 
>    0. Install gdb.
> 
>    1. Enable core dumps (/etc/security/limits.conf)
>       (Log off/on for changes to take effect)
> 
>    2. Install some "debug" packages that you think
>       may be appropriate.  E.g. if amarok has a debug
>       package:  score!
> 
>    3. Start amarok from a command line.
> 
>    4. When it crashes, note any messages on the console
>       screen.
> 
>    5. The core dump will be in your current present
>       working directory (`pwd`).  It will either be
>       named 'core' or 'core.PID' where PID is the
>       process ID number for the amarok application
>       that crashed.
> 
>    6. Get a backtrace like this:
> 
>       $ gdb --core=/path/to/core $(which amarok)
>       (wait for gdb to be "ready")
> 
>       gdb> bt full
> 
>    7. Inspect the back-trace for something obvious.
>       (E.g. if you see "PortAudio" or "PA", then
>       install the portaudio debug packages and retry.
>       If you see "Jack" then try to install jack
>       debug packages and retry.  "Gst" for Gstreamer...)
> 
>    8. Send the back-trace to your distro, this list,
>       the developers of amarok, or the devs of the
>       audio engine.

Nice recipe!!!

Your email about the backtrace made me think to check some more 
things out.  I found these:

  Bug Reports to Amarok developers:
  http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=115&t=67238

  How to create crash reports:
  http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports

I activated these Mandriva repositories in the media manager:

  Main debug
  Contrib debug

That made some packages visible, which I installed:

  amarok-debug-2.2.0-10mdv2010.0
  gstreamer0.10-debug-0.10.25-2mdv2010.0
  kdebase4-debug-4.3.2-3mdv2010.0
  kdelibs4-debug-4.3.2-11mdv2010.0
  kdemultimedia4-debug-4.3.2-2mdv2010.0
  pulseaudio-debug-0.9.19-7mdv2010.0


One of the two webpages above indicates that the crash window that 
pops up when Amarok dies is suitable for generating the backtrace 
required to aid developers.

Then I just found this thread:

  Amarok crashes after playing couple of tracks
  http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=115&t=89665&p=167287&hilit=amarok+crash#p167287

That thread says that their bug is fixed in version 2.3.2.  I'm
running version 2.2.0.  It could be that I'm seeing the same bug,
or maybe not.

Anyway, I think I have enough info to choke on it now.  ;-)


Thanks!

--
Kevin




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