GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 627448
gedit crashes when manipulating 2.8GB text file
Last modified: 2010-08-24 15:39:02 UTC
Downstream bug may be found at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gedit/+bug/620764 Binary package hint: gedit 1) lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS Release: 10.04 2) apt-cache policy gedit gedit: Installed: 2.30.3-0ubuntu0.1 Candidate: 2.30.3-0ubuntu0.1 Version table: *** 2.30.3-0ubuntu0.1 0 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 2.30.0git20100413-0ubuntu1 0 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages 3) What I expected to happen is that when I open up a 2.8GB text file with gedit, it will allow me to migrate around the file without crashing. 4) What happened instead is that the file initially opens successfully. However, each of three times it gets about 1/2 the way through loading, the window just closes without my having closed it. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04 Package: gedit 2.30.3-0ubuntu0.1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.39-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5 Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic i686 Architecture: i386 Date: Thu Aug 19 18:47:57 2010 InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429) ProcEnviron: LANG=en_US.utf8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: gedit
Thanks for taking the time to report this bug. Without a stack trace from the crash it's very hard to determine what caused it. Can you get us a stack trace? Please see http://live.gnome.org/GettingTraces for more information on how to do so. Thanks in advance!
I just did an initial test where I ran it from a terminal (see below). I'll review the link and post the stack trace soon: name@name-laptop:~/Desktop/id$ gedit CLI-output.txt GLib-ERROR **: (NULL) message aborting... Aborted name@name-laptop:~/Desktop/id$
Created attachment 168348 [details] gdb gedit Stack trace of gedit crashing in the middle of loading 2.8GB file.
GLib-ERROR **: (NULL) message aborting... Paste here the attach traceback Program received signal SIGABRT, Aborted. 0x0012d422 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) thread apply all bt
+ Trace 223329
Thread 1 (Thread 0xb7fd9750 (LWP 23630))
It would not be possible to open a 2.8GB file in a 32 bits system, whatever the application is, if it reads it completely as gedit does. The reason for that is simple: on a 32bits architecture, a process can only map 3 GB of memory. If you consider 2.8GB of content, with all the required bookkeeping information (like the btree used for storing the files lines), the libraries and so on would be much over the 3GB limit. Hence the error message here: 0x89689c "%s: failed to allocate %u bytes", args1=0xbfffeb0c "pi\211") Which itself cannot be displayed (the "NULL" you see) because the final message cannot be allocated... I suggest either you split your file or you use another adapted text reader (which won't need to allocate the entirety of the file, as opposed to a full-fledged editor) to read it properly...
Steve: Thank you for addressing this bug. I did use Vi to manipulate the file, which itself creates a full, temporary copy of the file while the file is being edited. However, it would be nice if gedit had some provision to deal with "large" files. Could we keep this open as a low priority, low severity, wishlist bug?