Signal-desktop: glibc 2.28 crash on Arch Linux [signal-desktop-bin, .deb binary]

[lnicola]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

Bug description

$ gdb --args /opt/Signal/signal-desktop            
GNU gdb (GDB) 8.1
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and "show warranty" for details.
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Type "show configuration" for configuration details.
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
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For help, type "help".
Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"...
Reading symbols from /opt/Signal/signal-desktop...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) r
Starting program: /opt/Signal/signal-desktop 
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/usr/lib/libthread_db.so.1".

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x0000000000c39ea0 in ?? ()
(gdb) bt
#0  0x0000000000c39ea0 in  ()
#1  0x00007ffff7d833a2 in node::http2::Http2Session::Callbacks::Callbacks(bool) () at /opt/Signal/libnode.so
#2  0x00007ffff7d83465 in  () at /opt/Signal/libnode.so
#3  0x00007ffff7fe36da in call_init.part () at /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
#4  0x00007ffff7fe37da in _dl_init () at /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
#5  0x00007ffff7fd503a in _dl_start_user () at /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
#6  0x0000000000000001 in  ()
#7  0x00007fffffffe399 in  ()
#8  0x0000000000000000 in  ()

Other Electron apps work (VS Code).

Platform info

Signal version: 1.14.4-1

Operating System: Arch Linux

Linked device version: Android 4.23.4

Link to debug log

N/A

Workaround

Just use the Flatpak version (thanks @aerosol).

[Edu4rdSHL]

I'm able to reproduce the same "Segmentation Fault" using the 1.15.0-beta.10 version of Signal-Desktop. It happened after of last electron update 2.0.6.

➤➤➤➤ ▶ signal-desktop NODE_ENV production NODE_CONFIG_DIR /usr/lib/signal/resources/app.asar/config NODE_CONFIG {} ALLOW_CONFIG_MUTATIONS undefined HOSTNAME undefined NODE_APP_INSTANCE undefined SUPPRESS_NO_CONFIG_WARNING undefined Set Windows Application User Model ID (AUMID) { appUserModelId: 'org.whispersystems.signal-desktop' } userData: /home/sechacklabs/.config/Signal making app single instance {"name":"log","hostname":"SecHackLabs","pid":9268,"level":30,"msg":"app ready","time":"2018-08-03T13:26:14.417Z","v":0} {"name":"log","hostname":"SecHackLabs","pid":9268,"level":30,"msg":"Ensure attachments directory exists","time":"2018-08-03T13:26:14.422Z","v":0} /usr/bin/signal-desktop: line 3: 9268 Segmentation fault (core dumped) electron /usr/lib/signal/resources/app.asar $@

Here is the coredump: https://gist.github.com/Edu4rdSHL/d97a4c8d8df3672c6768913dba375a33

[lnicola]

I'm not sure, it worked fine until.. yesterday or so. It might be a dependency in my case.

[Edu4rdSHL]

@lnicola the last electron update break signal, though.

[lnicola]

This happens on testing, at least. I didn't try the latest release since it's not available yet, and the beta package doesn't work (URL gives 404 since it was released).

[dessalines]

I'm getting this issue too.

[jplatte]

It's not the electron update that breaks signal. I temporarily downgraded electron to 2.0.5 and Signal still crashed.

[lnicola]

Same issue on 1.15.0-2.

[lnicola]

These are the packages I updated around the point where it stopped working:

16214:[2018-08-02 09:44] [ALPM] upgraded gdbm (1.16-1 -> 1.17-1)
16215:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl (5.26.2-2 -> 5.28.0-1)
16216:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded libldap (2.4.46-1 -> 2.4.46-2)
16217:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded archiso (37-1 -> 38-1)
16218:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded boost-libs (1.67.0-5 -> 1.67.0-6)
16219:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded boost (1.67.0-5 -> 1.67.0-6)
16220:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded bubblewrap (0.2.1-1 -> 0.3.0-1)
16221:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded libdrm (2.4.92-1 -> 2.4.93-1)
16222:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded device-mapper (2.02.180-1 -> 2.02.181-1)
16223:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded libpcap (1.8.1-2 -> 1.9.0-1)
16224:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded lm_sensors (3.4.0-4 -> 3.4.0+5176+dcf23676-1)
16225:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded colord (1.4.3-1 -> 1.4.3-2)
16226:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded libproxy (0.4.15-7 -> 0.4.15-8)
16227:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded chromium (68.0.3440.75-1 -> 68.0.3440.84-1)
16228:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded postgresql-libs (10.4-4 -> 10.4-5)
16229:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded gdal (2.3.1-2 -> 2.3.1-3)
16230:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded geoip (1.6.11-1 -> 1.6.12-1)
16231:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded gnome-bluetooth (3.28.1-1 -> 3.28.2-1)
16232:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded graphicsmagick (1.3.30-1 -> 1.3.30-2)
16233:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded mkinitcpio-busybox (1.28.4-1 -> 1.29.2-1)
16234:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded linux (4.17.11-1 -> 4.17.11.arch1-1)
16235:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded lvm2 (2.02.180-1 -> 2.02.181-1)
16236:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-algorithm-diff (1.1903-3 -> 1.1903-4)
16237:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-error (0.17026-1 -> 0.17026-2)
16238:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-timedate (2.30-4 -> 2.30-5)
16239:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-mailtools (2.20-1 -> 2.20-2)
16240:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-parallel-forkmanager (1.19-2 -> 1.19-3)
16241:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-regexp-common (2016010801-4 -> 2016010801-5)
16242:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded perl-rename (1.9-2 -> 1.9-3)
16243:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded remmina (1:1.2.31.1-1 -> 1:1.2.31.2-1)
16244:[2018-08-02 09:45] [ALPM] upgraded tracker (2.1.0-1 -> 2.1.1-1)
16307:[2018-08-02 22:59] [ALPM] upgraded linux-api-headers (4.16.1-1 -> 4.17.11-1)
16309:[2018-08-02 22:59] [ALPM] upgraded glibc (2.27-3 -> 2.28-1)
16316:[2018-08-02 22:59] [ALPM] upgraded binutils (2.30-5 -> 2.31.1-1)
16317:[2018-08-02 23:00] [ALPM] upgraded gcc-libs (8.1.1+20180531-1 -> 8.2.0-2)
16318:[2018-08-02 23:00] [ALPM] upgraded gcc (8.1.1+20180531-1 -> 8.2.0-2)
16319:[2018-08-02 23:00] [ALPM] upgraded libtool (2.4.6+40+g6ca5e224-7 -> 2.4.6+42+gb88cebd5-1)
16320:[2018-08-02 23:00] [ALPM] upgraded linux (4.17.11.arch1-1 -> 4.17.11.arch1-2)
16346:[2018-08-03 09:17] [ALPM] upgraded harfbuzz (1.8.4-1 -> 1.8.5-1)
16347:[2018-08-03 09:17] [ALPM] upgraded harfbuzz-icu (1.8.4-1 -> 1.8.5-1)
16348:[2018-08-03 09:17] [ALPM] upgraded pipewire (0.2.0-1 -> 0.2.2-1)
16349:[2018-08-03 09:17] [ALPM] upgraded mutter (3.28.3-1 -> 3.28.3-2)
16358:[2018-08-03 20:27] [ALPM] upgraded cryptsetup (2.0.3-2 -> 2.0.4-1)
16359:[2018-08-03 20:27] [ALPM] upgraded dbus (1.12.8-1 -> 1.12.10-1)
16360:[2018-08-03 20:27] [ALPM] upgraded libgphoto2 (2.5.18-1 -> 2.5.19-1)
16429:[2018-08-03 22:12] [ALPM] upgraded linux (4.17.11.arch1-2 -> 4.17.12.arch1-1)

This only happens on testing. I'll be careful when upgrading my system to see which package causes it.

[Edu4rdSHL]

Now, i can confirm the real problem, electron is not breaking signal, signal was broken after of 1.15.0-beta.9 update, downgrading signal to 1.15.0-beta.8 continue working.

[lnicola]

That must be a different issue, my report was about 1.14.4.

[Edu4rdSHL]

I'm going to open a new issue.

[lnicola]

Caused by upgrading from glibc 2.27-3 to 2.28-1.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

So, to be clear:

• This issue is about Arch problems on v1.14 and below
• https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/2610 is about Arch problems with v1.15

[lnicola]

This issue is about silent crashes (with no output) on both 1.14 and 1.15 that seem to be caused by a glibc upgrade.

2610 seems to be about more than one thing: building Signal from source, noexec /tmp, and maybe others.

[lnicola]

Also, the Arch package seems to extract a .deb: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=signal-desktop-bin.

[lnicola]

I've skimmed https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/blob/development/CONTRIBUTING.md, but I'm not sure how to make a release build. Does this look all right?

yarn install --frozen-lockfile # Install and build dependencies (this will take a while)
yarn grunt                     # Generate final JS and CSS assets
yarn icon-gen                  # Generate full set of icons for Electron

yarn generate
yarn build-release

There's already a config/production.json file, will it be picked automatically?

[Edu4rdSHL]

@lnicola answering to:

Also, the Arch package seems to extract a .deb: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=signal-desktop-bin.

You're talking about the signal-desktop-bin package that is not having problems for me, the real issue that I'm reporting is for the signal package that compiles signal-desktop from source.

[j0ni]

I am seeing this segmentation fault when I use signal-desktop-bin fwiw.

[aerosol]

FWIW, downgrading glibc for the time being, did the trick for me:

$ sudo pacman -U  /var/cache/pacman/pkg/glibc-2.27-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz /var/cache/pacman/pkg/lib32-glibc-2.27-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

[lnicola]

Beware, that might break other packages, since a lot of stuff got rebuilt after the glibc upgrade.

[ssentanoe]

Confirmed using the glibc 2.28 is crashed (signal-desktop-bin). After downgrade to glibc 2.27-3 it works just fine again.

[lnicola]

The thing is, that Arch package is built from the official Debian or Ubuntu package. This may not be fixable until Debian switches to the new glibc, which may take years or whatever.

And it's unfair to expect the Signal developers to do anything about this. So, if it doesn't turn out to be an easy fix, we will have to switch to the signal package, which currently doesn't work because of unrelated reasons.

[aerosol]

Since the same issue occurs for slack-desktop now, perhaps it's worth watching the workarounds/solutions posted there. FWIW, people on IRC suggest switching to flatpak.

[christianbundy]

I noticed the same thing after running pacman -Syu, both patchbay-git and signal-desktop-bin are crashing:

[   29.554210] electron[1721]: segfault at b87650 ip 0000000000b87650 sp 00007ffec19a3a58 error 15 in electron[200000+160c000]
[  107.182111] signal-desktop[9339]: segfault at c39ea0 ip 0000000000c39ea0 sp 00007ffc238483f8 error 15 in signal-desktop[200000+1603000]
[  117.136935] electron[11257]: segfault at b87650 ip 0000000000b87650 sp 00007ffc90d80608 error 15 in electron[200000+160c000]
[  117.492202] electron[11274]: segfault at b87650 ip 0000000000b87650 sp 00007fffd6dec088 error 15 in electron[200000+160c000]

This doesn't seem to be an issue with the Signal Desktop app, and from what I can tell most of us are Arch users. Maybe we should move this discussion to the Arch BBS?

---

Nevermind, this doesn't seem specific to Arch Linux.

[luminoso]

@christianbundy this problem isn't happening just on ArchLinux, but also on Fedora. I think that this discussion belongs here. A new/fresh build should work across different platforms like it did previously.

[almir]

People using Arch Linux can do this in case they don't want to downgrade glibc:

# Download and extract glibc 2.27-3
curl -fSL https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2018/08/01/core/os/x86_64/glibc-2.27-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz -o /tmp/glibc-2.27-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
sudo mkdir /opt/glibc-2.27
sudo bsdtar xf /tmp/glibc-2.27-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz --cd /opt/glibc-2.27

# Install PatchELF package
sudo pacman -Sy patchelf

# Patch the Signal binary to point to glibc-2.27
sudo patchelf --set-interpreter /opt/glibc-2.27/usr/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 /opt/Signal/signal-desktop
sudo patchelf --set-rpath /opt/Signal:/opt/glibc-2.27/usr/lib /opt/Signal/signal-desktop
sudo patchelf --shrink-rpath /opt/Signal/signal-desktop

[mxmilkiib]

Rolling release distributions are continuing to become a bigger thing. Maybe an extra build for such might be an appropriate solution?

[zatrazz]

On Electron [1] project, it seems the issue is related to linker where lld seems to generate wrong relocation. Could be this same issue here?

[1] https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/13972#issuecomment-411416730

[norpol]

In case you are switching to the flatpak version, you can still keep your old Signal config by creating a symlink into the flatpak config dir.

mv -vi ~/.var/app/org.signal.Signal/config/Signal{,.orig}
ln -vs ~/.config/Signal ~/.var/app/org.signal.Signal/config/Signal

Update

Might not completely work as advertised... It manages to download the media, but fails to display them afterwards... I guess some sandboxing issue...

INFO 2018-08-11T16:30:58.587Z Warning: denying request to path '/home/<user>/.var/app/org.signal.Signal/config/Signal/attachments.noindex/c8/c8....'

So instead doing this might be preferred (be careful with flatpak removing this file though!):

mv -vi ~/.var/app/org.signal.Signal/config/Signal{,.orig}
mv ~/.config/Signal ~/.var/app/org.signal.Signal/config/

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@norpol For security reasons, we ensure that any file accessed by the app is inside of our primary config directory, hence the 'denying request to path' log entry. We do, however, attempt to follow symlinks so that config directory is the right one, so I'm not exactly sure what's going on there: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/blob/816228fde01b73bba1ba7fbf9f86778c29d5da73/main.js#L584-L594

[norpol]

I can verify that the segfault is fixed with glibc 2.28-4 and signal-desktop-beta-bin 1.15.5beta.1-1.