[Xastir] objects getting scrambled

[Tom Russo]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 08:51:38AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <aa9vi at yahoo.com> flavor, containing:
> I am having issues on 2.0.1 with my objects from AA9VI-13 getting all scrambled from time to time.? Sometimes the object name gets funny characters, sometimes the object text gets some wrong characters or loses characters all together.? Any idea why this is happening?? I use a KPC3+ and I am running Debian 6.
> 
> A shutdown and restart of Xastir cleans this up for a short period of time.? It's like the .cnf file or whatever stores the object info is getting fouled up.? Weird.? Should I just blow the installation away and go to stable v2.0.0? Thanks for your feedback.? 


I've not seen this, but I have seen something similar and perplexing.  Perhaps
they are related.

Do you have multiple check boxes under the File menu set, e.g. for PNG 
snapshots, logging, etc.?

When I had both PNG snaphots and TNC logging turned on, I found that some
configuration did indeed get scrambled --- in my case, it was the path names
for snapshots, which would become completely corrupted.  If I attempted to quit
Xastir, it would give error messages about not being able to write the .cnf
file out (because the path was corrupted).  My guess is that there
is some non-thread-safe code that scribbles into arrays, and when there are
multiple timed writes like snapshots and logging, the two acts corrupt each 
other in some instances.  I was never able to track it down, but the behavior
went away when I turned off TNC logging (I run PNG snapshots continuously,
which I upload to a web site every 5-10 mins).

So, if you have two or more logging/snapshot options selected, try shutting
off all but one of them and see if the behavior changes.  If so, then it may
be the same issue that bit me.

I wish I could have tracked it down, but since it's a random event it was 
pretty much impossible to work through in finite time.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide
 stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork." - Edward Abbey