Segmentation Fault

[bowsprit]

Using ubuntu 64 10.04 LTS

I was trying to download metadata for a book and the program hung.
Killed the program, then tried to install latest version.

After new installation "calibre -v" fails with just "Segmentation fault"

in /var/log/messages:
Dec 27 14:10:01 u64 kernel: [10124.947862] calibre[6097]: segfault at 8 ip 00007ff5812c6c4f sp 00007fff8884eb60 error 4 in libpython2.7.so.1.0[7ff581240000+16e000]

I know that's not a lot to go on, but is there a simple solution like delete a library file that may have gotten corrupted?

[bowsprit]

Just on a whim, I tried intalling from source, just by copy/pasting the directions on the download page, and got these errors:


~/calibre$ sudo python setup.py install
Package poppler was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `poppler.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'poppler' found
Package poppler-qt4 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `poppler-qt4.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'poppler-qt4' found
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "setup.py", line 13, in <module>
import setup.commands as commands
File "/home/jd/calibre/setup/commands.py", line 28, in <module>
from setup.translations import POT, GetTranslations, Translations, ISO639
File "/home/jd/calibre/setup/translations.py", line 14, in <module>
from setup.build_environment import pyqt
File "/home/jd/calibre/setup/build_environment.py", line 155, in <module>
popplerqt4_inc_dirs = poppler_inc_dirs + [poppler_inc_dirs[0]+'/qt4']
IndexError: list index out of range

[user_none]

Installing from source requires a large number of dependencies to be installed on your system. The given error indicates that you need the development packages for poppler and poppler-qt4 installed.

[bowsprit]

Right, of course.

I'll try later to track down dependencies and compile the source if it looks like I have to, but up until this release I haven't have a problem with the simple upgrade installs with the linux installer, and I was guessing that my seg fault might have more to do with me corrupting the database when I killed the hung program than anything else.

So does anyone know if I delete the library database file, could it get rebuilt from the directory structure and mobi files? or would that completely hose everything?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by bowsprit

So does anyone know if I delete the library database file, could it get rebuilt from the directory structure and mobi files? or would that completely hose everything?

That depends ...

Calibre does not rebuild the library from the directory structure. You can, of course, import the books again, but you would be importing them as new books. A lot of metadata, especially custom columns, would be lost.

Calibre since release 0.7.21 has stored database recovery information in the library. If you have been running one of these releases, and if it has been able to finish storing the information (around 30 seconds per book), then the answer is a qualified 'yes'. Use the command line restore-database command.

All the above said, I would not assume that the library is the problem. It is more likely that calibre changed and requires some support package to exist or be upgraded. I remember some posts about the change to Qt 4.7 requiring newer graphics packages in some systems.

Before messing with your library:

1) rename your calibre configuration directory so that calibre thinks it needs to create a new library. If this segfaults, then you know it isn't the library.
2) try downgrading to what you had before. Be sure to delete the current installation and any dregs left from your attempt to install from source.
3) go over the change log, looking for support package version changes, checking whether there are problems with those packages on your system.