Segmentation Fault (core Dumped) - Session Corrupted? Hours Of Work Lost.

I posted this earlier in “How do I”, but I think this might be a more appropriate location.

I was working happily in Ardour 2.0.4. I had a bunch of tracks recorded, I was laying down a bass line and - blammo Ardour shutdown. Now when I try to open this session Ardour briefly opens and then shuts down. I can open other sessions, but not this one.

Here’s the output from the terminal:

aavera@home:~$ ardour2
Ardour/GTK 2.0.5
(built using 2234 and GCC version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21))
Copyright © 1999-2007 Paul Davis
Some portions Copyright © Steve Harris, Ari Johnson, Brett Viren, Joel Baker

Ardour comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the source for copying conditions.
loading default ui configuration file /usr/local/etc/ardour2/ardour2_ui_default.conf
loading user ui configuration file /home/aavera/.ardour2/ardour2_ui.conf
Configuration::pack_canvasvars () called, canvas_colors.size() = 82
ardour: [INFO]: Loading ui configuration file /usr/local/etc/ardour2/ardour2_ui_dark.rc
theme_init() called from internal clearlooks engine
loading system configuration file /usr/local/etc/ardour2/ardour_system.rc
loading user configuration file /home/aavera/.ardour2/ardour.rc
ardour: [INFO]: Using SSE optimized routines
ardour: [INFO]: looking for control protocols in /home/aavera/.ardour2/surfaces/:/usr/local/lib/ardour2/surfaces/
ardour: [INFO]: Control surface protocol discovered: “Mackie”
ardour: [INFO]: Control protocol Tranzport not usable
Unable to open “/dev/input/event0”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event1”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event2”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event3”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event4”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event5”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event6”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event7”: Permission denied
Unable to open “/dev/input/event8”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event9”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event10”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event11”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event12”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event13”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event14”: No such file or directory
Unable to open “/dev/input/event15”: No such file or directory
powermate: Opening of powermate failed - No such file or directory
ardour: [INFO]: Control protocol powermate not usable
ardour: [INFO]: Control surface protocol discovered: “Generic MIDI”
loading bindings from /home/aavera/.ardour2/ardour.bindings
Loading session /media/hdb1/Ardour_Sessions/Heartbeat using snapshot Heartbeat (1)
Loading history from ’/media/hdb1/Ardour_Sessions/Heartbeat/Heartbeat.history’.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Again, I can open other sessions, just not this one. Unfortunately I have a lot of time invested in this session and the fact that it’s become mysteriously unusable has me grinding my teeth a little bit.

I upgraded to Ardour 2.0.5 and that didn’t help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’d be happy to upload any files if needed. Just tell me where to put them or where to email them. I can also setup an FTP server if I have to.

Thanks!
-Andy

This may be completely off-base, but it’s possible that ardour is crashing while loading the undo history. Try moving the ardour.history file away from the session folder. If the session loads correctly, then you can continue working. If not, then move the file back into the session and try something else.

Either way you should log onto the IRC channel and help one of the developers track down the bug, so nobody else has to deal with this issue.

BenLoftis,

You saved me! I moved the .hostory files and my session opened correctly!

Thank you! I’ll log into the irc when I can and notify them about the issue.

-Andy

Consider us duly notified, but it may still be useful to be able to chat on IRC about this so we can find out more, quickly. I’ll be online this afternoon (Eastern time US, +6 GMT) (as “ardour”).

After I deleted the .history files, I was able to open my session which was fan-flippin’-tastic.

Then, after a few hours it happened again. So, I cut the newly formed (and newly corrupt) .history files back out of the session folder and my session worked again just as the first time I recovered from the issue.

I’ve uploaded all the history files from the first and second failure to the following link for your review. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/aavera@sbcglobal.net/lst?.dir=/my_docs&.src=bc&.done=http%3A//briefcase.yahoo.com/&.view=l

-Andy

a) Ardour 2.0.X is basically ancient history at this point. Hopefully, you are no longer using a version that is missing literally hundreds of bug fixes (including this one) and dozens of really useful new features. The current release is Ardour 2.5. The program is free to use - the cost of upgrading is as close to zero as we can make it.

b) showing up on IRC as “ardour” is probably a mistake - its one of the nicknames used by Ardour’s primary author.

Paul, melanqolis is a spam bot that copies bits of older posts (in this case: your own post :D)