Using GTK "Oxygen" Theme or Widget Style desktop configuration settings on Linux can cause IDL 8.x Workbench to crash

PROBLEM:

Some IDL users have reported that attempting to run the IDL 8.x Workbench on certain Linux releases (for example, Ubuntu 13.10 or OpenSuse 13.1/13.2) can result in a workbench crash with an errors like the following:

#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00007f88956a16b8, pid=14836, tid=140224829081344
#
# JRE version: 7.0_25-b15
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.25-b01 mixed mode linux-amd64 compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C  [libgobject-2.0.so.0+0x1a6b8]  g_object_get_qdata+0x18
#
# Failed to write core dump. Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try "ulimit -c unlimited" before starting Java again
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
#   http://bugreport.sun.com/bugreport/crash.jsp
# The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code.
# See problematic frame for where to report the bug.
#

#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00007fe278d6c4ed, pid=27846, tid=140610996872960
#
# JRE version: 7.0_25-b15
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.25-b01 mixed mode linux-amd64 compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C  [libgobject-2.0.so.0+0x324ed]  g_type_check_instance_is_fundamentally_a+0xd
#
# Failed to write core dump. Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try "ulimit -c unlimited" before starting Java again
#
# An error report file with more information is saved as:
# /home/joeuser/hs_err_pid27846.log
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
#   http://bugreport.sun.com/bugreport/crash.jsp
# The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code.
# See problematic frame for where to report the bug.
#

This problem seems to be related to the use of the KDE Desktop GTK configurations set to "Oxygen" related settings, for example, "oxygen-gtk"theme or "Oxygen" widget style (on OpenSuse 13.1 and Ubuntu 13.10, these appear to be the default settings).  The issue, as reported in the context of Eclipse (the IDL Workbench is based on the Eclipse framework), is discussed on the Eclipse bug web site (bugs.eclipse.org) as bug report #419729.

SOLUTION:

To try to fix this problem, try changing any "Oxygen" type GTK Theme or Widget Style setting (depending on your Linux version) to a different selection.

(Another approach to try to fix the problem might be to change your desktop from KDE to another desktop, for example, Gnome.)

Below are example instructions for changing the Oxygen theme/widget style on OpenSuse 13.1 and Ubuntu 13.10. Other Linux releases having this problem may require different steps to implement a similar change.

Example 1 (OpenSuse13.1):

 For example on OpenSuse 13.1, change the GTK2 Theme setting from "oxygen-gtk" to a different theme:

1.) Click on the OpenSuse launcher icon and select "Configure Desktop".

2.) On the dialog that appears, click on the "Application Appearance" icon.

3.) Under both the Style and GTK sections, change any currently applied GTK, GTK2, or GTK3 settings such that any "Oxygen" related settings are change to a different setting.  For example, select the "GTK" icon and then on that view, for "Select a GTK2 Theme:", choose a different item, such as "Raleigh".

4.) Click "Apply" to save changes.

Example 2 (Ubuntu 13.10):

For Ubuntu 13.10, you could try to change the widget style, for example, to "GTK+Style" via the system's Application Appearance GUI:

    Applications > Settings > System settings > Application Appearance

At this point, the IDL Workbench (idlde) should no longer crash when it is started. (Note, in some cases, it may be necessary to restart the system after making the above change before the IDL Workbench will no longer crash.)

 

[Reference IDL -69007 ]

Reviewed by JU (7-feb-2014), DS (10-feb-2014)