Emacs crash when displaying unicode character

Software PureOS
1

Hi all,

To read my e-mail, I use emacs + mu4e + mbsync. This setup is working great and has allowed me to clean up my mail box pretty fast.

Since a week or so, whenever emacs has to display a list of e-mails with unicode characters, it consistently crash

You will find below the traces produced by emacs when run from the terminal. You will also find some system and software information.

On another PC, an ASUS laptop with fedora 28, emacs has not such problem and display unicode characters correctly.

I have also notice the following:

  1. URXVT is not able to display unicode characters and display empty squares instead.
  2. I have configured emacs to use mu4e-alert, which send notifications to the system whenever new mails are received. The unicode charcters re correctly displayed in the notifications displayed by i3wm.
  3. On my ASUS laptop, I use xfce-terminal, it is able to display correctly unicode characters.

So, while it seems that emacs suffer from a bug, I am not excluding a misconfiguration somewhere.

Any help appreciated.

Emacs trace when it crash:
roland@tanko:~$ emacs -Q
X protocol error: BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length error) on protocol request 139
When compiled with GTK, Emacs cannot recover from X disconnects.
This is a GTK bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715
For details, see etc/PROBLEMS.
Fatal error 6: Aborted
(emacs:44651): GLib-WARNING **: 08:53:09.245: g_main_context_prepare() called recursively from within a source’s check() or prepare() member.

   (emacs:44651): GLib-WARNING **: 08:53:09.245: g_main_context_check() called recursively from within a source's check() or prepare() member.
   
   Backtrace:
   emacs[0x50ad2e]
   emacs[0x4f1329]
   emacs[0x50add3]
   emacs[0x4c10e0]
   emacs[0x4c5429]
   emacs[0x4c54ab]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XError+0x11a)[0x7efcfd9d60fa]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x43067)[0x7efcfd9d3067]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x4310d)[0x7efcfd9d310d]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XEventsQueued+0x55)[0x7efcfd9d3a25]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(XFlush+0x1a)[0x7efcfd9b55da]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x6284e)[0x7efcfd9f284e]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(XDestroyIC+0x12)[0x7efcfd9e0bf2]
   emacs[0x4d5ddf]
   emacs[0x4cdbc0]
   emacs[0x4ce08b]
   emacs[0x4280d0]
   emacs[0x4c1153]
   emacs[0x4c5429]
   emacs[0x4c54ab]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XError+0x11a)[0x7efcfd9d60fa]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x43067)[0x7efcfd9d3067]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x4310d)[0x7efcfd9d310d]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XEventsQueued+0x55)[0x7efcfd9d3a25]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(XPending+0x57)[0x7efcfd9c57a7]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk-3.so.0(+0x680ae)[0x7efcfec390ae]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_prepare+0x1c8)[0x7efcfdf43998]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x4c36b)[0x7efcfdf4436b]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_pending+0x27)[0x7efcfdf444f7]
   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-3.so.0(gtk_events_pending+0xd)[0x7efcff0f7efd]
   emacs[0x4c1ae7]
   emacs[0x4f8251]
   emacs[0x4f88e5]
   emacs[0x5c715a]
   emacs[0x57bf34]
   emacs[0x5c9d2c]
   emacs[0x5ca001]
   emacs[0x5ca31c]
   emacs[0x444041]
   emacs[0x44c0a0]
   emacs[0x451c58]
   ...
   Abandon

Librem 13 v3 with PureOS
System and software information:

  • Emacs version: GNU Emacs 25.2.2 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30) of 2018-07-11, modified by Debian

  • System information:
    roland@tanko:~$ sudo Xorg -version

    X.Org X Server 1.20.1
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 4.9.0-7-amd64 x86_64 Debian
Current Operating System: Linux tanko 4.18.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18.6-1 (2018-09-06) x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.18.0-1-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/crypt-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
Build Date: 17 August 2018  08:05:00PM
xorg-server 2:1.20.1-1 (https://www.debian.org/support) 
Current version of pixman: 0.34.0
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.

ASUS Laptop with Fedora 28

  • Emacs version
    GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30) of 2018-06-26

  • System information
    [root@farsight ~]# Xorg -version

    X.Org X Server 1.19.6
    Release Date: 2017-12-20
    X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
    Build Operating System: 4.15.3-300.fc27.x86_64
    Current Operating System: Linux farsight 4.17.19-200.fc28.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Aug 24 15:47:41 UTC 2018 x86_64
    Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.17.19-200.fc28.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/vg_farsight-lv_root ro rd.lvm.lv=vg_farsight/lv_root rd.lvm.lv=vg_farsight/lv_swap rhgb quiet LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
    Build Date: 23 April 2018 06:16:50PM
    Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.19.6-8.fc28
    Current version of pixman: 0.34.0
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.

Roland.

1 Like
2

I finally fix the issue.

I have install Fedora 28 instead of PureOS and with the latest third party packages and latest emacs version, I didn’t experience crashes any more.