Bug in openSUSE xorg security update

I’ve been hit by bug #345131 since updating to the latest xorg-server [7.2-143.9] security update on my openSUSE 10.3 installation. xorg-server version 7.2-143.6 to 7.2-143.9.

VLC, Filezilla and a few other applications stopped working. The bug has something to do with the X Window shared memory (MIT-SHM) overflowing.

My error,

The program ‘Filezilla’ received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was ‘BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)’.
(Details: serial 1072 error_code 11 request_code 147 minor_code 5)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the –sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Few hours of Googling and experimenting later I found my fix. 3  actually.

1. Edit your /etc/xorg.conf file and add the below to the “Extensions” section. This fixed some issues but not all. My Kaffeine decided to stop working following this method.

Section “Extensions”
Option “MIT-SHM” “no”
EndSection

2. Downgrade back to the previous version [7.2-143.6] of xorg-server. This will come with quite a few dependency warnings so be prepared to work through them. Worked for me but look at option 3 as it’s the best one.

3. Download and install the Beta fix xorg-server [7.2-143.10] from Novell from here. This one worked best for me.

Source: Novell Bugzilla SUSE Beta

One Response to “Bug in openSUSE xorg security update”

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1. Raja says:

   January 23, 2008 at 1:01 am

   Heh …
   Upgrade blues eh? touch wood fedora doesnt have this type problem yet…
   But then again the ‘free’ distros always suffer from this kinda thing, due to the frequency of updates.

   Reply