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Re: user cannot start acroread



Kari Ruohonen <karruo@utu.fi> [2002-09-16 10:49:45 +0300]:
> I am using debian unstable on i386. Recently (last week) after
> upgrading the system, user cannot start acroread anymore. Root can
> still use it with no problem. The error I get when starting acroread
> as an oridnary user is as follows:
> 
> acroread: ../../Source/ATM/Extra/Edge/FileCore.cpp:322: CTBool
> CTFile::Write(const void *, unsigned int): Assertion `nWritten ==
> nCount' failed.  /usr/bin/acroread: line 8: 3444 Aborted
> /usr/lib/Acrobat4/bin/acroread "$@"

You have hit a program assertion.  In the code the programmer set a
trap to catch an invalid condition.  The programmer thinks that can
never happen.  But if it does he catches it.  That is considered a
reasonable proramming practice.  Seeing that here would be indicate a
program bug.

Since you can run it as root then I suspect there is a file that is
now writable only by root.  Unfortunately the error message does not
say.  Only that the program was writing something and the count of
actual written bytes did not come back as expected.  The trick then is
to find what the filename it is writing would be.  Check /tmp perhaps?
Did the directory permission get changed?  What other place would
acroread be writing?  I can't imagine.

You could try running 'strace acroread'.  Be prepared for copious
amounts of system trace information.  See if it indicates a filename
near where the assertion failure occurs.

In the meantime until you get acroread running again I will recommend
xpdf.  It is not perfect.  But the startup time is very fast.  I
prefer it over acroread for my 99% case of reading pdf documents.

Bob

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