OpenSCAD kept crashing on Ubuntu 16.04 with AMD drivers

-
After the upgrade of my computer's graphics card for a new AMD RX 460 I noticed OpenSCAD program was crashing all the time with a segmentation fault (every time I pressed F5 or F6). But the problem would only happen if I was using AMD native driver (amdgpu-pro). I saw no references online to this specific problem which was weird.

I decided to buy the RX 460 as it apparently had good Linux support, so it was odd to have this kind of problem but no matter what version of the driver I was using or what version of OpenSCAD nightly build I could not use the application. I managed to get an AppImage version that worked without a problem in my system and that is what I have been using for a while.

Today, I have decided to check if somehow problem could he related to my locale, so I invoked the application like this: LC_ALL=C openscad-nightly

And lo and behold, OpenSCAD is working as it should, no problem whatsoever. So it is clear that my Spanish locale was what caused the problem. I wish I have thought sooner about making this simple test.

Update: Oops, there is still something else, as csg example still crashes the program (time to try a stable release now).

Update2: Well, stable release is a compelte no-go.

Update3: When you discover that the crashes happening from command line are gone if program is run from gdb.  WTF? It turns out it is a "Heisenbug" (time-sensitive bug)

Update4: It started to work ok with 17.30 driver update.

Comments

merlucin said…
Perhaps there is some kind of system log that helps you to clarify the problem?
2:23 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VFD control with Arduino using RS485 link

-
Image
Variable Frequency Drives ( VFD ) allow the control of spindles so speed can accurately be controlled and a detailed acceleration profile for the spindle and reverse rotation can all be handled. In essence a VFD is an three phase inverter for three-phase AC motor. I am using a popular (I mean cheap) Chinese VFD and though the reference manual is not great, I could see there is a built-in RS-485 port. I usually control the start, stop and speed selection using the keyboard on the unit but I thought it will be more useful if I could control everything from the same Arduino is doing our CNC table control. Some cheap RS-485 off eBay and some lines of code later, I can start, stop and change the speed from an Arduino. What a cool thing to have! Some configuration of your VFD are needed before you can use it like that.  You need to set PD163=1 (I am using address 1 in the code). PD=164=1 (for setting serial to 9600bps) and PD165=0 (for using ASCII and 8N1 character format)
Read more

How to get sinusoidal s-curve for a stepper motor

-
Image
After some experimentation, and delving a bit into the math of motion, I realized there can be a significant difference on the motion of a machine by just making small changes. A common and popular approach to smooth one axis of motion is to use a trapezoidal speed pattern, where acceleration and deceleration are uniformly accelerated movements (aka constant acceleration motion) separated by a portion happening at cruising speed. The problem comes with the fact that, while that approach is simple to understand and to code, it does contain sudden changes in the acceleration, that show as spikes on the acceleration derivative, called jerk. These sudden changes in the acceleration translate into undesired vibration in our machines. Most of that can be eliminated by selecting a motion pattern that does not contain sudden changes of acceleration. If we chose a mathematical function for our speed whose second derivative is continuous, then we reduce system vibration quite a lot. One ma
Read more

Importing OpenSCAD designs into Onshape

-
Image
After using Onshape CAD software for a while I am really fond of it. So one natural thing to do, specially once they have released the Instructor's kit is to start using it in the classroom too. But one thing I was not so sure how to do was to use old designs I made using OpenSCAD. It does not mean I am completely quitting using OpenSCAD but suddenly I can see I can do assemblies in Onshape that will look quite nice for showing and documentation purposes if only I could easily import from OpenSCAD. I am glad to report that the route OpenSCAD --> FreeCAD --> Onshape worked brilliantly. Even more when a few tricks were applied. While some people suggest to import CSG files from OpenSCAD to FreeCAD, I have had more success by directly importing SCAD files into FreeCAD. One trick that worked well for me was to get rid of $fn references, so now circles become real circles (or cylinders) in FreeCAD. If a part keeps some $fn references then your cylinders or circles wi
Read more