[gentoo-user] vmware fail - malloc & other wierd errors

[Iain Buchanan <iaindb@netspace.net.au>]

Hi all (I'm back briefly, only to go again soon) but I'm having some
hassles with vmware.

I'm running tuxonice 2.6.35, everything up to date.  When I try and run
vmplayer:

...
vmplayer: malloc.c:3096: sYSMALLOc: Assertion `(old_top == (((mbinptr)
(((char *) &((av)->bins[((1) - 1) * 2])) - __builtin_offsetof (struct
malloc_chunk, fd)))) && old_size == 0) || ((unsigned long) (old_size) >=
(unsigned long)((((__builtin_offsetof (struct malloc_chunk,
fd_nextsize))+((2 * (sizeof(size_t))) - 1)) & ~((2 * (sizeof(size_t))) -
1))) && ((old_top)->size & 0x1) && ((unsigned long)old_end & pagemask)
== 0)' failed.
Aborted

running with valgrind:
$ vmplayer --valgrind
/opt/vmware/player/lib/vmware/bin/launcher.sh: line 231: 28215 Illegal
instruction ...

the valgrind (snipped) log shows:
==28215== Memcheck, a memory error detector
...
==28215== vex x86->IR: unhandled instruction bytes: 0x66 0x66 0x2E 0xF
==28215== valgrind: Unrecognised instruction at address 0x6962e65.
...
==28215== 
==28215== Process terminating with default action of signal 4 (SIGILL)
==28215==  Illegal opcode at address 0x6962E65
==28215==    at 0x6962E65: __memset_sse2 (memset-sse2.S:258)
==28215==    by 0x9A9D557: ??? (in /usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.256.53)
==28215== 
==28215== HEAP SUMMARY:
==28215==     in use at exit: 0 bytes in 0 blocks
==28215==   total heap usage: 0 allocs, 0 frees, 0 bytes allocated
==28215== 
==28215== All heap blocks were freed -- no leaks are possible
==28215== 
==28215== For counts of detected and suppressed errors, rerun with: -v
==28215== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 15 from 8)

vmware-workstation gives all sorts of errors too from similar abortions,
segfaults, and complaints about libGL.so, depending on weather I start
it plainly or by using VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=force.

I've tried all sorts of things - from USE_SHIPPED_GTK to xorg-x11 opengl
to reinstalling & recompiling modules, but no luck.  Google is
unsympathetically silent on this one :(

Please help!  thanks :)
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides.
		-- Andre Malraux