[GNC] Gnucash 5.13 crashes after aborting new database setup

[John Ralls]

You’re right about bugzilla and the bots. We shut it down last Friday after discovering that the bots had found a way around our requiring credentials, perhaps by acquiring credentials.

As to the crash, can you get a stack trace? See https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Stack_Trace for instructions. The stack trace will be more useful if you let gdb download debug symbols at the start of the session.

Regards,
John Ralls


> On Oct 1, 2025, at 20:52, James Ralston <ralston at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> (I tried to report this in Bugzilla, but attempting to open
> bugzilla.gnucash.org either fails with ICMP port unreachable, or else
> opens the generic Fedora Apache httpd index.html file.  So I’m
> assuming the battle against the AI bots is ongoing.)
> 
> Starting with GnuCash 5.13, if you create a new database, but click
> “Cancel” in the “New Account Hierarchy Setup” window at the very first
> window, then the resulting GnuCash instance will crash (with SIGSEGV)
> when you attempt to either quit the program, or else open a saved
> database.
> 
> I noticed this change because I frequently work on multiple GnuCash
> databases at the same time, by launching GnuCash multiple times.  My
> procedure for getting the new GnuCash instance to open the database I
> want is:
> 
> * Launch GnuCash, which opens database #1
> * Launch GnuCash, which attempts to open database #1
> * Wait for the “Could not obtain lock” window
> * Select “Create New File”
> * Wait for the “New Account Hierarchy Setup” window
> * Click “Cancel”
> * Open the “File” menu and pick database #2
> 
> In retrospect, this is probably faster:
> 
> * Launch GnuCash, which opens database #1
> * Launch GnuCash, which attempts to open database #1
> * Wait for the “Could not obtain lock” window
> * Click “Open Read-Only”
> * Open the “File” menu and pick the database I want to open
> 
> But I went with my current method because I didn’t want the second
> GnuCash instance to attempt to touch an already-open database at all,
> even in read-only mode.
> 
> I have a work-around.  But even even if GnuCash doesn’t expect to user
> to begin to create a new database and then immediately abort that
> process, it shouldn’t crash with SIGSEGV.
> 
> From skimming the 5.13 release notes, I don’t see any obvious bugfixes
> that look like they could have caused a regression related to
> switching accounts, except possibly this one:
> 
> * Bug 799249 - Crash while switch to recently opened file
> 
> But that’s just a wild guess.
> 
> I’m using gnucash-5.13-1.fc41.x86_64 (the official Fedora GnuCash
> packages) on Fedora 41.
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