[XeTeX] [SOLVED] Segmentation fault error in xdvipdfmx 0.7.8 with CharisSIL 4.106

[George N. White III]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 5:43 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj at melroch.se> wrote:
> On 2010-02-02 Wilfred van Rooijen wrote:
>>
>> Segmentation fault: as far as I know, this basically means that
>> an application is trying to use a part of the memory it was not
>> assigned. This can happen if arrays are indexed erroneously,
>> for instance. In this case, assuming the application is OK, the
>> font could be damaged for whatever reason, or you may have a
>> bad memory.
>>
>
> Is it likely that the error was not with the font being damaged
> when it affected only one font when used in one program?  Wouldn't
> I notice in a lot of ways if the memory were damaged?
>
> I have solved the problem, by any or all of the following:
> erasing all copies of CharisSIL font files and archives on my system, of
> which there turned out to be only one each,
> thereafter downloading a fresh copy of the font files from
> the SIL site, unpacking and installing it -- for the third time!
> -- then running fc-cache -f (where -f probably is the operative thing which
> I wasn't aware of previously).  Another factor also
> came to my memory: last week I opened the CharisSIL-Regular font file with
> FontForge to check out some glyph variants.  Is it
> possible that I damaged the file when doing so?  It seems clear
> the font file, or the fc-cache data on it, was damaged in some
> way.  Although the problem is now gone I wish I knew what it was,
> so that I (or someone else) will not repeat it.

I think it very likely that the font cache was damaged.   I seen this
a few times -- but not using Ubuntu 9.10.

If you open a "system" font simply for viewing without using the "root"
account or "sudo", the file permissions should prevent changes to the font.

> Thanks for taking the time, George and Wilfred.
>
> /BP
>
>
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-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia