Maps keeps crashing
After a recent update, gnome-maps keeps crashing randomly, most often after only a few moves of the map. Sometimes simply clicking on the map will trigger the crash. As things stand, the application is hardly usable. When running from a terminal, I am getting variations of this message:
***MEMORY-ERROR***: org.gnome.Maps[6666]: GSlice: assertion failed: sinfo->n_allocated > 0
While researching that error message, I found out that running G_SLICE=always-malloc gnome-maps somehow prevents it from crashing. I hope this is not too much of a dark spell, but it certainly looks like a shady workaround.
There is no MATE maps, nor MATE globe to try as a replacement, unfortunately, and reverting to the previous version does not help. There is KDE's Marble, but it is seems to be siphoning RAM like a thirsty vampire rabbit. It also crashed once, so I am currently using the dark magic trick instead.
After doing apt purge gnome-maps and installing the package again, Maps is not crashing any more.
apt autoremove
This is a typical example of why some deem it wiser to stick to security updates as soon as the system works just fine for their needs, as a general rule.
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Your messages made me try gnome-maps. I have an up-to-date system, gnome-map is crashing in less than one minuted as you have reported.
I did the purge, autoremove and reinstall as you suggested and here I am:
(org.gnome.Maps:7317): folks-WARNING **: 09:39:43.694: Failed to find primary PersonaStore with type ID 'eds' and ID 'system-address-book'.
Individuals will not be linked properly and creating new links between Personas will not work.
The configured primary PersonaStore's backend may not be installed. If you are unsure, check with your distribution.
***MEMORY-ERROR***: org.gnome.Maps[7317]: GSlice: assertion failed: sinfo->n_allocated > 0
Note: I am not in a MATE session, I am using only dwm.
If you keep fully updating your system, you will keep bringing Maps back to the future, where the crashes happen.
EDIT: If you want to keep getting all updates *but* those related to Maps, you are probably going to need to lock the package version. I never needed to do that, so I am not in a position to recommend it, but you may want to try. Synaptic provides an option to do just that in the "Package" menu. I have no idea whether this also has to be applied manually to all dependencies, which is seemingly where the regression was introduced.
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Ah, I previously did not understand that "stick to security updates" meant to not install other kinds of updates. What would be the way to do that? Only have aramo and aramo-security in /etc/apt/sources.list? Is there a way to revert to that without reinstalling Trisquel?
We could try to isolate the issue and try to fix it too :)
Oh yes, I subscribe to that option too. The issue report is in the making, mostly by way of collating the above info into a coherent text.
Also, researching upstream bug reports, especially those where Captain Haddock seems to be saying they would not fix 42.x crashes because they have now moved on to much better stuff GTK4, throwing away 'clutter' in the process:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/issues/423
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/issues/585
UPDATE: issue report created for Aramo.
Yes, I am actually doing just that, usually. You can simply select "Security updates only" in "Software and updates". With "Daily" checks, and "Download and install automatically" you are left with a rather safe system, without most of the (rare but always possible) regressions. I would not recommend choosing that option right after install, though.
I tend to keep doing full updates for some time, until everything just works smoothly, then revert to security updates. From time to time, because of a glitch, an issue report, or a wild need for novelty, I do a full update and see what happens. I have been doing that since Trisquel 7, and nothing horrible ever happened, but Maps got a nasty bug with the last update, so I did purge, autoremove and install the 'aramo' package version again. Then I reverted to "Security updates", until next time, etc.
Good, timely advice Prospero! I'll remember that, thank you! My system is purring and I like that a lot!
Exactly. Trisquel is a purring operating system, and many of us like to just let it pur.
I should add that "full updates" also includes backports, contrary to the slightly more conservative "recommended updates", which I believe is default settings. I really like to use the backported LibreOffice version, it feels like riding the bleeding edge from a comfy sofa.
I'm testing on a Trisquel 11.0 (Mate) up-to-date (no backports) and gnome-maps seems to be working fine.
Could it be a hardware issue?
Please share the steps to trigger this issue.
Steps to trigger this issue on Trisquel 11.0 with MATE, using Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2):
1. run apt update with security and recommended enabled
2. install Maps
3. run Maps and start moving the map or zooming in/out
After a few moves, Maps crashes.
Steps to escape this issue:
1. purge gnome-maps and autoremove (26+1 packages uninstalled)
2. switch to security updates only
3. install gnome-maps
Maps does not crash any more.
UPDATE: several times I thought the issue was gone, so I visited here to amend this thread. Then I clicked on Maps in the window list to check whether it was still there, and it crashed. Just now I got:
***MEMORY-ERROR***: org.gnome.Maps[7415]: GSlice: assertion failed: sinfo->n_allocated > 0
Abandon
On 23/09/21 07:00PM, name at domain wrote:
> Steps to trigger this issue on Trisquel 11.0 with MATE, using Mesa Intel® HD
> Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2):
>
> 1. run apt update with security and recommended enabled
> 2. install Maps
> 3. run Maps and start moving the map or zooming in/out
>
> After a few moves, Maps crashes.
>
> Steps to escape this issue:
>
> 1. purge gnome-maps and autoremove (26 packages uninstalled)
> 2. switch to security updates only
> 3. install gnome-maps
>
> Maps does not crash any more.
Free software is awesome.
This seems to be gone after the last kernel update. So maybe that was it.
I may keep the issue open a couple of days, until I can confirm on the other systems where the glitch also happened.
@Avron: can you confirm this is not present any more on your system after updating it, including recommended updates?
EDIT: on some systems, I had to update, purge/autoremove/reinstall gnome-maps and reboot a couple of times before the glitch was gone.
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On my up to date system with all udpdates and backports, it still crashes in the same way.
On 23/09/22 08:22AM, name at domain wrote:
> On my up to date system with all udpdates and backports, it still crashes in
> the same way.
is there something wrong with the version on Trisquel, or is a bug in the inherent program?
Try what a Debian person would call an 'oldstable' version.
I am not sure if that is even possible. You could get the deb
from the Debian website and manually install it.
This would at least eliminate what I have to say.
You could just install the newest version
of gnome-maps from the Debian package manager
website; and hope it works.
Get the architecture right though.
Downgrades are possible too, with a command like:
sudo apt install gnome-maps=42.0-1
I actually didn't know how to install a specific version through apt that way. Thanks
On September 22, 2023 11:03:25 AM EDT, name at domain wrote:
>Downgrades are possible too, with a command like:
>sudo apt install gnome-maps=42.0-1
>
Another way is to install the Flatpak. If you have not the Flathub repository already set up and want its verified FLOSS subset, execute in a terminal:
$ sudo apt install flatpak
$ flatpak remote-add --subset=verified_floss flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Then, to install GNOME Maps:
$ flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Maps
(To have the very first application I installed with flatpak appear in the menu, I had to restart the graphical session.)
The recommended way is not to go out of repo. This means using the packages that can be found in the Trisquel repository, not in some random third-party repo full of non-free stuff. Why would anyone be asking for that?
As mentioned by Ark74 above, the main suggestion is to help solving the issue here, not to go for adventures in the wild. Maybe you can help us? Issue report: https://gitlab.trisquel.org/trisquel/package-helpers/-/issues/111.
Have you tried purge/autoremove/install again gnome-maps, without enabling backports?
I had to do it at least a couple of times, apply some more updates (with security and recommended enabled, but not backports) and reboot each time, before it stopped crashing consistently.
It is still crashing, though.
I just got the crash again, but just once. It used to crash every time, after any amount of time between a few seconds and half a minute.
I have noticed that the map is centered and zoomed at the same position as when it last closed/crashed, even after reinstall. So some data must be kept from one install to the next. I may try to purge all dependencies, I am not sure whether autoremove is doing as much cleaning as purge does. Clearly, the crashes now happen much less often, to the point that I thought they were gone.