I strongly suspect the issue you encountered got introduced in commit 9f1f58bf24ee73332.

Please compile KBibTeX in a clean build directory and report back:
- Command line used to invoke cmake
- Any console output of the cmake run
(Output of make or ninja not required)
- The content of file kbibtex-version.h in the build directory
- The content of file src/parts/kbibtex-git-info.h in the build directory

Hi Thomas, 

I used

cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debug

(emptied the build dir before) which reports

-- Unity build disabled (default), use option UNITY_BUILD to enable it
-- Poppler: Qt5 requires Core
-- Found ICU 57.1.0
-- Found Qca-qt5 2.1.1 and QtOAuth
-- Found both QtWebEngine and QtWebKit, preferring to use QtWebEngine
-- The following OPTIONAL packages have been found:

 * Qt5Qml (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5Quick (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5WebChannel (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5Positioning (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5WebEngineCore (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5PrintSupport (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5WebEngineWidgets (required version >= 5.6.0)
 * Qt5WebKit (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5WebKitWidgets (required version >= 5.6.0)
 * KF5DocTools
 * PkgConfig
 * Qca-qt5 (required version >= 2.1.0)
 * QtOAuth
 * SharedMimeInfo, A database of common MIME types, <http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/shared-mime-info/>

-- The following REQUIRED packages have been found:

 * ECM (required version >= 5.19)
 * Qt5Core
 * Qt5Gui (required version >= 5.9.1)
 * Qt5Widgets
 * Qt5Network
 * Qt5XmlPatterns
 * Qt5 (required version >= 5.6.0)
 * Qt5Test (required version >= 5.6.0)
 * Gettext
 * PythonInterp
 * KF5I18n (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5XmlGui (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5KIO (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5IconThemes (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5ItemViews (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5Completion (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5Parts (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5CoreAddons (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5Service (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5Wallet (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5Crash (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * KF5 (required version >= 5.26.0)
 * Poppler, A PDF rendering library, <http://poppler.freedesktop.org>
 * ICU

-- Configuring done
-- Generating done
-- Build files have been written to: /home/gandalf/down/git/kbibtex/build

There are no errors during compiling.


kbibtex-version.h contains:

// This file was generated by ecm_setup_version(): DO NOT EDIT!

#ifndef KBIBTEX_VERSION_H
#define KBIBTEX_VERSION_H

#define KBIBTEX_VERSION_STRING "0.8.50"
#define KBIBTEX_VERSION_MAJOR 0
#define KBIBTEX_VERSION_MINOR 8
#define KBIBTEX_VERSION_PATCH 50
#define KBIBTEX_VERSION ((0<<16)|(8<<8)|(50))

#endif


and src/parts/kbibtex-git-info.h contains:


/// This file has been automatically generated by 'getgit.cmake'.
/// Do not edit or modify it.

#ifndef KBIBTEX_GIT_INFO_H
#define KBIBTEX_GIT_INFO_H
#define KBIBTEX_GIT_REV_STRING "5c09dcc4"
#define KBIBTEX_GIT_BRANCH_STRING "master"
#define KBIBTEX_GIT_INFO_STRING "5c09dcc4 (master)"
#endif // KBIBTEX_GIT_INFO_H

(In reply to Gandalf Lechner from comment #2)
> Hi Thomas, 
> 
> I used
> 
> cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debug
> 
> (emptied the build dir before) which reports
> [..]

Unfortunately, this turned out to be inconclusive; everything looks fine.

More things to try:
- in files src/parts/partfactory.cpp, src/test/main.cpp, src/program/program.cpp, please replace every occurrence of function  strlen  with  qstrlen
- please report Linux distribution, used C++ compiler, and any other relevant information necessary to setup a system similar/identical to yours.

I am using kubuntu 17.10, fully updated. On a different computer, I have kde neon ("developer edition"), and the behavior of kbibtex is identical on both systems.

The gcc versions on the two computers are (output of gcc --version)

gcc (Ubuntu 7.2.0-8ubuntu3.2) 7.2.0

and

gcc (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.9) 5.4.0 20160609

forgot to mention: Replacing strlen with qstrlen did not result in any noticable difference.

I set up virtual machines with both KDE Neon User Edition and Developer/Git unstable. In both cases, KBibTeX compiled and run without problems.

Given that I fail to reproduce your crash on two clean but otherwise identical systems suggests that there may be some left-over from an old KBibTeX causing problems.
You can try to uninstall and remove any KBibTeX system files (program binaries, .so files, ...) in /usr, /usr/local, ... before compiling/installing anew and then backup and move away any configuration files (search for '*kbibtex*' in ~/.config, ~/.local, and ~/.kde*).
Instead of moving configuration files, you may create a fresh user account on your system.

If KBibTeX still crashes, run KBibTeX through ltrace and strace:
strace -o /tmp/kbibtex-strace.txt /path/to/kbibtex
ltrace -o /tmp/kbibtex-ltrace.txt /path/to/kbibtex
Submit both kbibtex-*trace.txt files to this bug report.

Created attachment 111484 [details]
strace

Created attachment 111485 [details]
ltrace

I hunted down and removed all files containing kbibtex in their names before compiling / installing from git again, but no luck. I now attached the outputs of strace and ltrace, hopefully they contain useful information.

I have tried to get my KBibTeX to crash to help identify the underlying issue, but without success. I compiled with debug symbols, with gcc-6.4.0 (Gentoo stable). I will report back if I encounter a crash, but for now cannot help.

Perhaps build KBibTex with as few options as possible to start, to see if any of those are involved? (I compile without webkit/webengine support.) In case that works, you can add options one by one.

(In reply to Erik Quaeghebeur from comment #10)
> Perhaps build KBibTex with as few options as possible to start, to see if
> any of those are involved? (I compile without webkit/webengine support.) In
> case that works, you can add options one by one.
I tried to recreate a setup as described in the CMake output, e.g. QtWebEngine and QtWebkit installed in KDE Neon. I still try to get hold on some other KBibTeX user who can reproduce this issue.

I asked a number of people to try to reproduce this crash, but no one succeeded.

Alexander Dunlap send me an email stating: "I tried compiling with those flags but I didn't get a crash. Unfortunately I don't have much time at all to work on this right now but I will keep it in my inbox and will let you know if I have time to look at it and find anything."

So, given that no one except for the bug reporter is able to reproduce this crash and none of the provided data (traces etc.) was conclusive, I will close this bug.
Should new information turn up, please feel free to re-open this bug report.