[gentoo-user] How do I turn off glibc's runtime error checks?

[gentoo-user] How do I turn off glibc's runtime error checks?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

This is driving me nuts.  Since a few days ago, glibc will abort 
programs with a:

*** glibc detected *** program: free(): invalid pointer: ... ***

or similar error message.  I have no idea which package was updated that 
triggered this.  I did *not* emerge glibc (qlop confirms that I emerged 
glibc 3 months ago.)

The crashing programs *are* buggy.  The problem is that I can't shut up 
glibc and prevent it from interfering.  It's extremely annoying and I 
feel the urge to kill baby bunnies.  Please help!

[gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn off glibc's runtime error checks?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 07/02/2011 03:05 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> This is driving me nuts. Since a few days ago, glibc will abort programs
> with a:
>
> *** glibc detected *** program: free(): invalid pointer: ... ***
>
> or similar error message. I have no idea which package was updated that
> triggered this. I did *not* emerge glibc (qlop confirms that I emerged
> glibc 3 months ago.)
>
> The crashing programs *are* buggy. The problem is that I can't shut up
> glibc and prevent it from interfering. It's extremely annoying and I
> feel the urge to kill baby bunnies. Please help!

Argh, I found the problem in an unlikely place.  It's KDE 4.7 RC1 (!). 
It seems there's an environment variable called MALLOC_CHECK_ that 
instructs glibc to perform runtime checks on every program that runs.

kde-base/kdebase-startkde-4.6.90 installs a /usr/bin/startkde that sets 
MALLOC_CHECK_=3.  This results in every program that runs after starting 
KDM to be runtime checked.  It also makes the system slower (Kwin here 
felt very sluggish and I also got a hefty performance loss when running 
another OS in a virtual machine.)

Note to others running 4.7 RC1: setting MALLOC_CHECK_=0 does not solve 
the performance problem; glibc still checks, but just doesn't abort or 
print errors.  To get rid of this, you need to edit /usr/bin/startkde 
and remove the 'if' section that sets MALLOC_CHECK_.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn off glibc's runtime error checks?

[Ivan T. Ivanov]

Hi, 

On Sat, 2011-07-02 at 04:18 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 07/02/2011 03:05 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> > This is driving me nuts. Since a few days ago, glibc will abort programs
> > with a:
> >
> > *** glibc detected *** program: free(): invalid pointer: ... ***
> >
> > or similar error message. I have no idea which package was updated that
> > triggered this. I did *not* emerge glibc (qlop confirms that I emerged
> > glibc 3 months ago.)
> >
> > The crashing programs *are* buggy. 

 You can also check this one:

 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12518

 iivanov

[gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn off glibc's runtime error checks?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 07/02/2011 12:32 PM, Ivan T. Ivanov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, 2011-07-02 at 04:18 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> On 07/02/2011 03:05 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> This is driving me nuts. Since a few days ago, glibc will abort programs
>>> with a:
>>>
>>> *** glibc detected *** program: free(): invalid pointer: ... ***
>>>
>>> or similar error message. I have no idea which package was updated that
>>> triggered this. I did *not* emerge glibc (qlop confirms that I emerged
>>> glibc 3 months ago.)
>>>
>>> The crashing programs *are* buggy.
>
>   You can also check this one:
>
>   http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12518

I'm on glibc 2.12, so this doesn't affect me.