[pkg-fgfs-crew] Bug#695465: flightgear: Segfaults on startup: Failed to load object Models/Geometry/container_carrier.ac (Recommends vs Depends?)

[Axel Beckert]

Package: flightgear
Version: 2.6.0-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

without any specific configuration (but used one or two times before
with IIRC 2.4.x), fgfs segfaults on startup:

$ fgfs
fgfs: Version mismatch in 'svn_client': found 1.6.17, expected 1.7.5
fgfs: Version mismatch in 'svn_subr': found 1.6.17, expected 1.7.5
Failed to initialize built-in SVN client, error = 1
Failed to load file: "Models/Aircraft/marker.xml"
KI266 dme indicator #0 initialized
loading scenario 'nimitz_demo'
creating 3D noise texture... DONE
Failed to load object Models/Geometry/container_carrier.ac
[1]    8466 segmentation fault  fgfs
$ 

The syslog has additional information:

Dec  8 16:46:17 c-crosser kernel: [753648.008126] fgfs[8569] segfault at 0 ip 00007fa310b18264 sp 00007fa2f2759690 error 4 in libSimGearScene.so.2.6.0[7fa3109cf000+229000]

Be aware that I don't have fgfs-models-base installed due to size
constraints and because its just recommend but no hard
dependency. Installing fgfs-models-base solves the issue.

Additionally fgfs refuses to start if the also only recommended
fgfs-aircraft-base is not installed:

$ fgfs
Cannot find specified aircraft: c172p
Config option parsing failed ...
$ 

So either these recommended packages are actually hard requirements, or
the default configuration is broken in the sense that it expect the only
recommended packages to be installed.

In any case, it should not segfault.

Since I suspect there are ways to get fgfs working without these
additional packages as fgfs-base's description says "This package
contains graphics, sounds, models, and the minimum scenery you need to
start Flight Gear", I'm not filing this as RC despite I consider it
being quite close to a policy violation.

Nevertheless, I couldn't find direction on necessary configuration
changes to get fgfs working without the recommended packages on a first
glance. If additional configuration is indeed necessary for this, they
should be either documented in /usr/share/doc/flightgear/README.Debian
or there should be a hint about their location in there.

(This bug report contains multiple issues which I suspect can be solved
by the same change. If you consider the segfault itself a separate
issue, feel free to clone and retitle this bug report.)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (800, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages flightgear depends on:
ii  fgfs-base                 2.6.0-1.1
ii  freeglut3                 2.6.0-4
ii  libapr1                   1.4.6-3
ii  libc6                     2.13-37
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.7.2-4
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]  8.0.4-2
ii  libglu1-mesa [libglu1]    8.0.4-2
ii  libice6                   2:1.0.8-2
ii  libjpeg8                  8d-1
ii  libopenscenegraph80       3.0.1-4
ii  libopenthreads14          3.0.1-4
ii  libplib1                  1.8.5-5.2
ii  libpng12-0                1.2.49-1
ii  libsm6                    2:1.2.1-2
ii  libstdc++6                4.7.2-4
ii  libsvn1                   1.6.17dfsg-4
ii  libudev0                  175-7
ii  libx11-6                  2:1.5.0-1
ii  libxext6                  2:1.3.1-2
ii  libxi6                    2:1.6.1-1
ii  libxmu6                   2:1.1.1-1
ii  simgear2.6.0              2.6.0-3
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages flightgear recommends:
ii  fgfs-aircraft-base  2.6.0-1.1
pn  fgfs-models-base    <none>
ii  fgfs-scenery-base   2.6.0-1.1

flightgear suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information