[Pan-users] Re: Assertion failed, not starting

[Duncan]

address@hidden posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sun, 21 Sep 2008
15:17:46 +0200:

> hi,
> i get this when i try to start pan:
> 
> pan
> pan: parts.cc:244: void pan::Parts::set_parts(const pan::PartBatch&):
> Assertion `pch == part_mid_buf + part_mid_buf_len' failed. Aborted
> 
> it occures since i shut the computer down without ending pan before. i
> had this problem several times, when pan was not shut down properly.
> after completely removing and reinstalling pan, it works again. i use
> linux mint and pan version 0.132-2ubuntu2 (hardy).

Check your tasks.nzb file, by default ~/.pan2/tasks.nzb.  It (or one of 
its tasks) may be corrupt.  You can just delete it but you'll end up 
losing the tasks that were executing at the time.  If you are careful and 
can figure out how to hand-edit the xml, you should be able to edit it 
and save most of it, but perhaps one or two tasks.

It's also reasonably likely that files in pan's cache were corrupted.  
The cache, located in that same dir, is only 10 MB by default, so you 
shouldn't lose too much by deleting it.

Also note that 0.132 and previous had a heap overflow issue related to 
*.nzb files, including pan's own tasks.nzb.  This may or may not be what 
you are seeing but THIS BUG WAS A SECURITY ISSUE!  0.133 corrected the 
problem, and there was a patch made available for 0.132 as well.  Whether 
Ubuntu's current version includes it or not, I don't know, but you could 
check the changelog for reference to the CVE mentioned in the bug, here:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=535413

I'm not an Ubuntu/Debian person, but you can probably use the 0.133 
package from Debian-experimental, here, if need be.  Or just compile it 
from sources.

http://packages.debian.org/experimental/news/pan

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman