I had the same problem in the past. See here:
http://groups.google.com/group/matrixprogramming/browse_frm/thread/6b1eca143
1425d49
-a
taucs_linsolve is not stable and seems to have many bugs. The simplest
way is to use the low-level TAUCS functions directly. You can find an
example here
http://matrixprogramming.com/TAUCS/src/test_taucs_lowlevel.cpp
Also please note that there is also ldlt solver that can be used for
indefinite matrices. Some problem is that both ldlt and lu in TAUCS are
pretty slow. Well, if you matrices are not that big, they can work for
you. So just go through the TAUCS manual, find functions names and
modify the example above.