Acroread segfault

[Michael Jinks <mjinks@uchicago.edu>]

Hi, all.  I'm mostly looking for tips on where to seek more info, since
at this point I'm completely puzzled and lack the background to really
dig into this issue.

I've just set up the first of a batch of new Dell Optiplex GX240's,
running Woody.  These are going to be desktops for researchers, so
reading PDF files is extremely important.  Unfortunately, Acroread
segfaults when it tries to display to the screen.  It works fine when
the display is exported elsewhere or to a VNC session; but it segfaults
when I run the program on my own desktop and export the display to the
new Dell.  From all of that I surmise that the problem arises from an
interaction between Acroread and the X driver which is actually painting
the display on these machines.

For what its worth, Acroread will run if it's started without loading any
document, but the segfault happens as soon as we try to open and display
anything.  That would make me suspect the font server, but as I said it
runs fine in a VNC session.

So far, Acroread is the only program we've found which exhibits this
behavior.  I'd try to get support from Adobe but I expect they'll just
point the finger at XFree86.

In case it helps, I'm appending some output from the XFree86 log at the
bottom of this message.  The video card is an ATI built into the
system's motherboard, I don't know much about the chipset and the log
output doesn't tell me much either; if it will help, I can probably find
out more from Dell.  I can also send along the output of 'strace
acroread <file>' if that would be useful.

I'm aware of xpdf and I've recommended it as a workaround for now, but I
expect my users to need the feature set of Acroread itself sooner or
later.

Thanks for any tips.

-mrj

Remainder of posting is small excerpt from XFree log.

(==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Mon May 20 08:43:30 2002
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
<snip>
(==) ServerLayout "Default Layout"
(**) |-->Screen "Default Screen" (0)
(**) |   |-->Monitor "Generic Monitor"
(**) |   |-->Device "Generic Video Card"
(**) |-->Input Device "Generic Keyboard"
(**) Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
(**) XKB: rules: "xfree86"
(**) Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
(**) XKB: model: "pc104"
(**) Option "XkbLayout" "us"
(**) XKB: layout: "us"
(==) Keyboard: CustomKeycode disabled
(**) |-->Input Device "Configured Mouse"
(**) |-->Input Device "Generic Mouse"
(WW) The directory "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic" does not exist.
        Entry deleted from font path.
(**) FontPath set to
"unix/:7100,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
(==) RgbPath set to "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
(==) ModulePath set to "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
(++) using VT number 7
<snip>
(WW) Cannot open APM
(II) Module ABI versions:
        XFree86 ANSI C Emulation: 0.1
        XFree86 Video Driver: 0.4
        XFree86 XInput driver : 0.2
        XFree86 Server Extension : 0.1
        XFree86 Font Renderer : 0.2
(II) Loader running on linux
(II) LoadModule: "bitmap"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libbitmap.a
(II) Module bitmap: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
        compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 1.0.0
        Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
        ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.2
(II) Loading font Bitmap
(II) LoadModule: "pcidata"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libpcidata.a
(II) Module pcidata: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
        compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 0.1.0
        ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.4
(II) PCI: Probing config type using method 1
(II) PCI: Config type is 1
(II) PCI: stages = 0x03, oldVal1 = 0x00000000, mode1Res1 = 0x80000000
(II) PCI: PCI scan (all values are in hex)
<snip>
(II) PCI: End of PCI scan
(II) LoadModule: "scanpci"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libscanpci.a
(II) Module scanpci: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
        compiled for 4.1.0.1, module version = 0.1.0
        ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.4
(II) UnloadModule: "scanpci"
(II) Unloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libscanpci.a
<snip>
[remainder of file elided to save bandwidth, available if anyone thinks
it will be useful]

-- 
# Michael Jinks, IB # JFI/MRSEC/EFI Computing # University of Chicago #
      Reader!  Think not that
      technical information
      ought not be called speech;  -- Anonymous, "How to decrypt a DVD"


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