Second, I looked at the line failing:
334 OM=OM^(1/2); XM=XM^(1/2);
335 match&=isequal(find(OM),find(XM));
Then I checked in sparsersb.cc: ^ is not implemented.
Reason it's working on the Octave instances above is
because a conversion occurs.
So ^ is not officially supported by that version sparsersb
(.^ is).
I suggest to patch commenting lines 334 and 335 (no need
to test a non-existing feature) and re-package
octave-sparsersb and check again on that Octave instance.
I'll check whether ^ can be implemented for the next revision.