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Topic: thunderbird segfault on startup, apparently due do sqlite3 31 (Read 888 times) previous topic - next topic
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thunderbird segfault on startup, apparently due do sqlite3 31

Recently (no, unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly after what update it started) trying to start thunderbird give me a "Segmentation fault" with no other output.  After finding https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=252287 it appears to be due to a problem with sqlite 3.31.  Downgrading sqlite to 3.30 allows thunderbird to start.  Oddly, I did not have a problem with firefox.  The new sqlite comes from gremlins, and I'd file a bug against it, but I don't really know what to say about it.  Thunderbird comes from extra, but if the bug is indeed in sqlite3 and not in thunderbird itself, I suppose it needs to be pushed upstream - but I can't tell if that happened through the arch forum posting (as no reference to an actual bug report.)\
Any suggestions as to where to actually look or poke further?

Re: thunderbird segfault on startup, apparently due do sqlite3 31

Reply #1 –
Not really a bug, but just mismatched library versions which will naturally cause lots of programs to segfault. It's kind of expected in this case since thunderbird is from a stable arch repo and gremlins is our testing repo. You'll have library mismatches from time to time like this. Thunderbird is flagged out of date on Arch so I assume on that update they'll rebuild it against the new sqlite version and then everything will work again and we can move sqlite to stable.

Re: thunderbird segfault on startup, apparently due do sqlite3 31

Reply #3 –
As I read through all those links, it seems not so much a bug, as that sqlite changed their internal data layout, and mozilla had directly depended on the old layout.  Both thunderbird and firefox would then crash if run against the new sqlite, as the API didn't change, but the internal data layout did.  There would be no crash if run) against the older version, which is what was bundled.  So, building against the bundled sqlite would produce working versions, but building against system sqlite would crash once sqlite was updated to 3.31.

As I understand things from the mozilla bug, sqlite will revert that change, so the next sqlite will allow TBird to work again.  From my personal perspective, however, I'm really disappointed that one of the outcomes of this is that mozilla might no longer support building against system sqlite, and only against the bundled version.  I'm not sure how much difference that will make for Arch/Artix, but I suspect it won't be well received by source based distros.

Re: thunderbird segfault on startup, apparently due do sqlite3 31

Reply #4 –
that will fix today, we move sqlite  3.31.1-1 to core