Fatal Error

[Brian McNoldy]

I very recently started having problems with IDLDE crashing with a "Fatal error: IDL has encountered a fatal error and will now exit." any time it's asked to do anything related to graphics (even in the buffer).  I'm using IDL 8.8.2 and it's running in Alma Linux 9.  I suspect it could be related to an update to Java, but not sure.  

If it's relevant, here is what I have for my Java version:

openjdk 11.0.23 2024-04-16 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (Red_Hat-11.0.23.0.9-2) (build 11.0.23+9-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (Red_Hat-11.0.23.0.9-2) (build 11.0.23+9-LTS, mixed mode, sharing)

and the only relevant line in /var/log/messages is:

kernel: traps: idl_engine[222301] general protection fault ip:7f306e6d73b0 sp:7ffd46870b80 error:0 in libidl.so[7f306de00000+daa000]

I have not changed the IDL installation at all, but there was a recent system software update. Just curious if anyone else has run into this and what I could try to resolve it.

Thanks,

Brian (now in my 28th year of IDL-ing, but this problem is new to me!)

[Ben C]

Hey Brian, 

You may be encountering this relatively new IDL graphics issue introduced via a system/library update to many flavors of Linux in the last few months. Please see this Help Article link for a work-around/fix: https://www.nv5geospatialsoftware.com/Support/Self-Help-Tools/Help-Articles/Help-Articles-Detail/ArtMID/10220/ArticleID/24443/What-to-do-if-ENVIIDL-are-crashing-Linux-with-this-message-Bus-error-core-dumped

Your error isn't exactly the same as we've been seeing, but is seems reasonable the root cause may be the same. 

Hope thsi helps. 

Cheers,

Ben from NV5 Geospatial

[Brian McNoldy]

Thank you... very helpful!  The error/crash was vague enough that it was quite hard to trace back to the culprit.  There's very little out there about libidl.so!

Brian