OpenCpn crashes on hitting a config button (last but one in menu); Draw plugin?

[Montyfrisian]

Hi folks,


anyone around who is willing to sort this out?


It seems I have compromised my installation on Linux Jammy. The problem may have arisen out of re-installing which I tried after I was wondering why one or two plugins seem to have disappeared. I must admit I have been stupid enough to not taking a lot of care remembering which way I installed first, and so I may have mixed up the native installation from within my 22.04 linux and installing after adding and editing the lauchpad sources.


So what happens is that when I try to enter the surface oder view or desktop button (anyway the one between ships and plugins - don't know what it is in English) openCpn crashes. It's just that - the rest works fine, even with plenty of plugins activated; furthermore, activating or switching OpenGL off makes no difference.


By the way, I do regret that the NV-chart integration is coming to its end ... I have been hoping for about 4 years that an NV-plugin for Linux would materialise but I could not persuade the NV guys to make the effort and hook up with David and his bunch. Not too many sailors here in Germany using OpenCpn, I guess.


And, speaking of plugins, what's happened to DRAW? I thought it was kind of immensely useful ...


Cheers from slow spring Germany,
Monty

[nohal]

Monty...

I suppose you now are running OpenCPN 5.8.0. Please manually clean the old plugins you may have on your system by running `rm -f ~/.local/lib/opencpn/*`, they are not compatible with this new version and in some cases cause the problem you seem to be describing.

The updated Draw plugin was not yet released to the master plugin catalog, but O5.8 compatible version is already available in the beta catalog.

To enable the beta catalog, shut down OpenCPN, Open the configuration file ~/.opencpn/opencpn.conf and add CatalogExpert=1 after [Plugins], then start OpenCPN again and you will be able to switch to that catalog in the plugin manager settings.

[Montyfrisian]

@nohal,
thanks for answering so promptly,
I did what you suggested to me but unfortunately it did not do the trick:


there is still the problem with the programme crashing when I try to open the menu that's under settings and meant to configure AIS stuff etc (the button that looks like a mixing desk).


Additionally, now, the toolbar would not update according to the number of plugins I activated (I am trying all this before trifling with the betas as to avoid additional potential confusion). Some plugin-buttons appear on the toolbar, or appeared right from the start, but any changes in the plugin menu seem not to affect the toolbar.


So, do you think it might be the easiest way to erase each and every bit of the installation and do a fresh one from scratch?
There's not too much important data in it yet and if needs be I just do without ...


In that case: how would I proceed? Delete any opencpn-related folder manually after running uninstall in the package manager??

[nohal]

I can't reproduce any of your problems on my Ubuntu 22.04 machine
You may just get rid of your configuration, delete or rename the directory `.opencpn` in your home, eg. mv ~/.opencpn ~/.opencpn.bak (While OpenCPN is not running)
If it does not help, I would like to see your logfile.

[Montyfrisian]

Chucking out config .opencpn does not help - same problem.
I'll post
1. the original logfile
2. one from the original that's called .log.log

3.the new one after deleting the old configuration
...
hm, size exceeds limits. Email then ...

[Montyfrisian]

Ok now, here go ..

[nohal]

Your earlier crashes seem to have definitely caused by some plugins, but there is very little clue for the one while entering the user interface settings in the toolbox.
I noticed your system locale is German, I can't reproduce the crash switching my system to German, but as a simple test you may try to temporarily switch your system to English and see if it goes away.

Then, if you have time, I would like to see the stack trace of the crash, you would need to do the following to create one:

Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opencpn-ubuntu-opencpn-jammy.list:

deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/opencpn/opencpn/ubuntu/ jammy main/debug

Update the APT data and install the GNU debugger and OpenCPN debugging symbols:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gdb opencpn-dbgsym

Start OpenCPN in the debugger from terminal

gdb -ex run opencpn

Cause the crash

Execute bt command in the debugger

A lot of text will be printed to the terminal, copy it and send to me

Execute q command to quit the debugger

[Montyfrisian]

Ok, sure I'll do that, if that's a way how to contribute. I only don't want to be a nuisance and waste other people's time after having stumbled around fairly clumsily when installing.
In the meanwhile, there's something general to report:
1.

I thought it might be a good idea to check the Ubuntu version (I have been using LTSes exclusively for a very long time so I just had 22.04 in mind like on my desktop PC. But this one's my laptop and I had issues with something after upgrading) and so I upgraded this one to 22.10 Kinetic. Oh my, how stupid, sorry.

2. Realising this, I checked whether I had chosen the correct source for Opencpn. Ok, there is nothing yet for 22.10 so I thought this should be alright. Anyway, I re-installed Opencpn from within (uncommenting lauchpad source) and obviously ended up with 5.6.2 on my laptop then.
Checks ....

The only issues were those with the old plugin system. Otherwise there seemed to be no problems - Opencpn was as stable as of old, German language setting was working as well as the US. English ...
3. then I reactivated the lauchpad source to upgrade to 5.8 and voilà, Opencpn crashes when I try to access the user interface menu.


So I think it's useful to do now as you've indicated and do some debugging according to your instructions. Judging by your quick and patient and meticulous instructions, I think you really want to know what the trouble is. I'll gladly comply ...



But nohal, let me be clear about this: I'd content myself with a downgrade for a while as long as I have a stable working Opencpn to show to advertise to the guys I'll be sailing with shortly. Since I haven't got a boat myself, I hope folks will let me have a go and try and see if I can hook my OpenCpn in on the NMEA sources and learn and spread the OpenCpn gospel

[Montyfrisian]

Well, wait ...
Obviously, in sources.list.d the file you want me to alter refers to kinetic, not jammy.


Should I proceed debugging like you suggested or is that of no use?

[Montyfrisian]

And another thing:
Yesterday I added another user account to my laptop, exclusively for OpenCpn.
5.8. runs smoothly, plugins, German language setting (which means access to the user interface menu causes no problems whatsoever ....

[nohal]

OK, I would still like to see the backtrace of your crash.
There is no OpenCPN package for Kinetic in the PPA from which you installed it, we release only for the LTS versions of Ubuntu, so I suppose you still installed the one for Jammy and can simply follow the instructions I provided..

[Montyfrisian]

Here go ...

[nohal]

Many thanks. It crashes while building the list of languages available on your system.
Do I understand correctly that under different account on the same system the problem is not present? And if so, is the list of languages filled there with many items, including languages not installed on your system?

[Montyfrisian]

Correct.
I set up another user account to test if there were issues with Ocpn.
I did not add another language, English was default.
No issues.


The language selector in the user interface of Ocpn offered a long list of all sorts of languages.


I just added German and priorised it in the regional settings of my system, just to check if there were issues.


But no, everything works fine, i.e. Ocpn does not crash.


I think this all emerged from the half-exotic bluetooth keyboard I use with my laptop (because I don't really like to use the computer's keyboard).
This keyboard seems to cause conflicts in the language setup of the computer. I cannot simply unplug it and use the native keyboard of the laptop. I've got used to some of its erratic tricks (putting up with it because I cannot write properly without);


I tried a reconfig using that dpgk-command, but to no avail. During the login-process the system changes the keyboard setting from English to German ...


But can all this really affect Ocpn??

[Montyfrisian]

Ok, so now I've sorted out the regional setting / keyboard problem of my laptop that, according to the debug information, seemed to cause the crash on hitting the user interface button.


Problem is: OpenCpn still crashes in the same manner; I tried re-installing, but that did not help. I deleted the .opencpn folder too, but there must be some other config files that keep some of the config stuff that causes the crash.


The funny thing is: I put up a new user account where OpenCpn behaves as it should.


Now, how can I delete every single bit of OpenCpn to do a really clean re-installation?