KCrash dump files

Help
1

Hi all,
I have found a lot of 70 byte sized files on my desktop with “weird” characters.
The issue is similar to this one:

I assume something is crashing, but the content of the files is scrambled, too. It seems some weird UTF-8 issue as the file names contain Chinese characters among others and Dolphin renders them as black diamonds with the interrogation mark.

Opening them with cat shows also scrambled content, plus a PID, which is pretty much irrelevant after the crash has occurred.

While I have no problem removing the files and I could eventually just add a line in the .bashrc to clean them up when logging in, I would love to learn why they happen and take care of the issue in a way more appropriate than ignoring potential errors.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

1 Like
2

Got something:

Nov 27 18:32:19 Debian baloo_file[2919]: [58B blob data]
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian systemd-coredump[2926]: [🡕] Process 2919 (baloo_file_extr) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                               
                                               Module libsystemd.so.0 from deb systemd-252.17-1~deb12u1.amd64
                                               Module libudev.so.1 from deb systemd-252.17-1~deb12u1.amd64
                                               Stack trace of thread 2919:
                                               #0  0x00007f558d574d59 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x155d59)
                                               #1  0x00007f558d47d168 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x5e168)
                                               #2  0x00007f558d47d7fd n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x5e7fd)
                                               #3  0x00007f558d53582f __fprintf_chk (libc.so.6 + 0x11682f)
                                               #4  0x00007f558e3187e1 _ZN6KCrash19defaultCrashHandlerEi (libKF5Crash.so.5 + 0x57e1)
                                               #5  0x00007f558d45afd0 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x3bfd0)
                                               #6  0x00007f558983d678 n/a (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0xb678)
                                               #7  0x00007f5589838bf8 n/a (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x6bf8)
                                               #8  0x00007f55898390a2 wl_proxy_marshal_array_flags (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x70a2)
                                               #9  0x00007f55898392be wl_proxy_marshal_flags (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x72be)
                                               #10 0x00007f5588044aeb n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6aeb)
                                               #11 0x00007f5588044137 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6137)
                                               #12 0x00007f5588044387 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6387)
                                               #13 0x00007f558d707cac _ZN9QHashData11free_helperEPFvPNS_4NodeEE (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x107cac)
                                               #14 0x00007f5588042da0 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x4da0)
                                               #15 0x00007f5588042dc9 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x4dc9)
                                               #16 0x00007f558d8a7275 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2a7275)
                                               #17 0x00007f558d8ab46f n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2ab46f)
                                               #18 0x00007f558d8a8999 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2a8999)
                                               #19 0x00007f558d45cf77 __cxa_finalize (libc.so.6 + 0x3df77)
                                               #20 0x00007f558d6afdc7 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0xafdc7)
                                               #21 0x00007f558e4f212a n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x112a)
                                               #22 0x00007f558e4f5764 n/a (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x4764)
                                               #23 0x00007f558d45d4dd n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x3e4dd)
                                               #24 0x00007f558d45d61a exit (libc.so.6 + 0x3e61a)
                                               #25 0x00007f558d4461d1 n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x271d1)
                                               #26 0x00007f558d446285 __libc_start_main (libc.so.6 + 0x27285)
                                               #27 0x000055cb15af33f1 n/a (baloo_file_extractor + 0xa3f1)
                                               ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian systemd[1315]: Started drkonqi-coredump-launcher@22-2927-0.service - Launch DrKonqi for a systemd-coredump crash (PID 2927/UID 0).
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian drkonqi-coredump-launcher[2938]: the exe in the metadata file doesn't match the exe in the journal entry! aborting "êîËKÎU" "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/baloo_file_extractor"
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian drkonqi-coredump-launcher[2938]: Failed to read metadata from crash () false
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian drkonqi-coredump-launcher[2938]: Nothing handled the dump :O
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2919]: KCrash: Arguments:
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: [16B blob data]
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: [20B blob data]
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: [20B blob data]
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: 10 -- signal=11
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: 9 -- pid=2934
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: KCrash: crashing... crashRecursionCounter = 2
Nov 27 18:32:20 Debian baloo_file[2934]: [58B blob data]

The reason is thus the Baloo indexer. I am going to check if I can do anything about it, besides of disabling it with balooctl (I do see value in desktop indexing, though I can live without it too).

My OS is PRETTY_NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)”
KDE frameworks 5.103.0
QT 5.15.8
Plasma 5.27.5

3

What does your env look like?

4

Voila.

It’s a pretty fresh install, so that I haven’t had much time to mess around with it yet . There is a “small” mess up with the locales that I don’t think is relevant. And it’s certainly not KDE related.

runlevel0@Debian:~$ env
SHELL=/bin/bash
SESSION_MANAGER=local/Debian:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/1504,unix/Debian:/tmp/.ICE-unix/1504
WINDOWID=2
QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1
COLORTERM=truecolor
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/home/runlevel0/.config/kdedefaults:/etc/xdg:/usr/share/desktop-base/kf5-settings
SSH_AGENT_LAUNCHER=openssh
XDG_SESSION_PATH=/org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session1
LANGUAGE=en_GB:nl:ca@valencia:es:de
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1000/openssh_agent
SHELL_SESSION_ID=87ed7c63c5f248a082721c7bdac9b0cb
DESKTOP_SESSION=plasmawayland
LC_MONETARY=nl_NL.UTF-8
GTK_RC_FILES=/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/home/runlevel0/.gtkrc:/home/runlevel0/.config/gtkrc
XCURSOR_SIZE=24
GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge
XDG_SEAT=seat0
PWD=/home/runlevel0
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=KDE
LOGNAME=runlevel0
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
SYSTEMD_EXEC_PID=1686
XAUTHORITY=/run/user/1000/xauth_oraFEc
XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=pc105
GTK2_RC_FILES=/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:/home/runlevel0/.gtkrc-2.0:/home/runlevel0/.config/gtkrc-2.0
HOME=/home/runlevel0
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LS_COLORS=rs=0:di=01;34:ln=01;36:mh=00:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:mi=00:su=37;41:sg=30;43:ca=00:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arc=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.lha=01;31:*.lz4=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.txz=01;31:*.tzo=01;31:*.t7z=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.lrz=01;31:*.lz=01;31:*.lzo=01;31:*.xz=01;31:*.zst=01;31:*.tzst=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.war=01;31:*.ear=01;31:*.sar=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.alz=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.7z=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.cab=01;31:*.wim=01;31:*.swm=01;31:*.dwm=01;31:*.esd=01;31:*.avif=01;35:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.mjpg=01;35:*.mjpeg=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.mng=01;35:*.pcx=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.webm=01;35:*.webp=01;35:*.ogm=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.rmvb=01;35:*.flc=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.fli=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gl=01;35:*.dl=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.yuv=01;35:*.cgm=01;35:*.emf=01;35:*.ogv=01;35:*.ogx=01;35:*.aac=00;36:*.au=00;36:*.flac=00;36:*.m4a=00;36:*.mid=00;36:*.midi=00;36:*.mka=00;36:*.mp3=00;36:*.mpc=00;36:*.ogg=00;36:*.ra=00;36:*.wav=00;36:*.oga=00;36:*.opus=00;36:*.spx=00;36:*.xspf=00;36:*~=00;90:*#=00;90:*.bak=00;90:*.old=00;90:*.orig=00;90:*.part=00;90:*.rej=00;90:*.swp=00;90:*.tmp=00;90:*.dpkg-dist=00;90:*.dpkg-old=00;90:*.ucf-dist=00;90:*.ucf-new=00;90:*.ucf-old=00;90:*.rpmnew=00;90:*.rpmorig=00;90:*.rpmsave=00;90:
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=KDE
KONSOLE_DBUS_SERVICE=:1.62
WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0
KONSOLE_DBUS_SESSION=/Sessions/1
PROFILEHOME=
XDG_SEAT_PATH=/org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
QTWEBENGINE_DICTIONARIES_PATH=/usr/share/hunspell-bdic/
INVOCATION_ID=3f9616f2d171482b91c174b6624f0c73
KONSOLE_VERSION=221203
MANAGERPID=1363
KDE_SESSION_UID=1000
XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=us
XDG_ACTIVATION_TOKEN=kwin-3
XDG_SESSION_CLASS=user
TERM=xterm-256color
USER=runlevel0
COLORFGBG=15;0
PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1
KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5
PAM_KWALLET5_LOGIN=/run/user/1000/kwallet5.socket
QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI=96
DISPLAY=:1
SHLVL=1
LC_MEASUREMENT=nl_NL.UTF-8
XDG_VTNR=1
XDG_SESSION_ID=3
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000
LC_TIME=C
QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0
JOURNAL_STREAM=8:25613
XCURSOR_THEME=breeze_cursors
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/home/runlevel0/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop
KDE_FULL_SESSION=true
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games:/home/runlevel0/bin:/home/runlevel0/bin/rstudio
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus
KDE_APPLICATIONS_AS_SCOPE=1
LC_NUMERIC=nl_NL.UTF-8
KONSOLE_DBUS_WINDOW=/Windows/1
_=/usr/bin/env
5

I seem to have resolved the problem (partially)

I just wanted to be sure, because I had added a find command to my crontab to delete all the files of 70KB of size and permissions 600, running every 5 minutes.

What I did was pretty simple:

balooctl stop && balooctl purge && balooctl resume

It is happily buzzing away re-indexing everything and not a single crash dump has landed on my home dir.

The systemd-coredumps are however still occurring. I have no idea where KCrash is placing these, so that I will have to keep an eye on my filesystem.

The index file is also absurdly large, 1.16 GB for a relatively new system with only 25% of total disk usage, but I don’t care; I am not planning on putting videos or large images on the drives, so no big deal.

I hope my workaround helps :slight_smile:

6 
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 12
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.103.0
Qt Version: 5.15.8
Kernel Version: 6.6.13+bpo-rt-amd64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 7640U w/ Radeon 760M Graphics
Memory: 27,2 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Manufacturer: Framework
Product Name: Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040Series)
System Version: A5

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/baloo_file_extractor also started causing coredumps regularly on my system:

journald coredump log entries (click to open) 
systemd-coredump[48863]: [🡕] Process 48843 (baloo_file_extr) of user 1000 dumped core.

                                               Module libsystemd.so.0 from deb systemd-252.22-1~deb12u1.amd64
                                               Module libudev.so.1 from deb systemd-252.22-1~deb12u1.amd64
                                               Stack trace of thread 48843:
                                               #0  0x00007fd9305927d8 __strlen_evex (libc.so.6 + 0x1677d8)
                                               #1  0x00007fd930489258 __vfprintf_internal (libc.so.6 + 0x5e258)
                                               #2  0x00007fd9304898ed buffered_vfprintf (libc.so.6 + 0x5e8ed)
                                               #3  0x00007fd9305419ef ___fprintf_chk (libc.so.6 + 0x1169ef)
                                               #4  0x00007fd93145a7e1 _ZN6KCrash19defaultCrashHandlerEi (libKF5Crash.so.5 + 0x57e1)
                                               #5  0x00007fd930467050 __restore_rt (libc.so.6 + 0x3c050)
                                               #6  0x00007fd93162e678 n/a (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0xb678)
                                               #7  0x00007fd931629bf8 n/a (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x6bf8)
                                               #8  0x00007fd93162a0a2 wl_proxy_marshal_array_flags (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x70a2)
                                               #9  0x00007fd93162a2be wl_proxy_marshal_flags (libwayland-client.so.0 + 0x72be)
                                               #10 0x00007fd92c258aeb n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6aeb)
                                               #11 0x00007fd92c258137 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6137)
                                               #12 0x00007fd92c258387 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x6387)
                                               #13 0x00007fd93092dcac _ZN9QHashData11free_helperEPFvPNS_4NodeEE (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x107cac)
                                               #14 0x00007fd92c256da0 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x4da0)
                                               #15 0x00007fd92c256dc9 n/a (KF5IdleTimeWaylandPlugin.so + 0x4dc9)
                                               #16 0x00007fd930acd275 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2a7275)
                                               #17 0x00007fd930ad146f n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2ab46f)
                                               #18 0x00007fd930ace999 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0x2a8999)
                                               #19 0x00007fd930468ff7 __cxa_finalize (libc.so.6 + 0x3dff7)
                                               #20 0x00007fd9308d5dc7 n/a (libQt5Core.so.5 + 0xafdc7)
                                               #21 0x00007fd93164812a _dl_call_fini (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x112a)
                                               #22 0x00007fd93164b81e _dl_fini (ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 + 0x481e)
                                               #23 0x00007fd93046955d __run_exit_handlers (libc.so.6 + 0x3e55d)
                                               #24 0x00007fd93046969a __GI_exit (libc.so.6 + 0x3e69a)
                                               #25 0x00007fd930452251 __libc_start_call_main (libc.so.6 + 0x27251)
                                               #26 0x00007fd930452305 __libc_start_main_impl (libc.so.6 + 0x27305)
                                               #27 0x00005610549f13f1 n/a (baloo_file_extractor + 0xa3f1)
                                               ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu drkonqi-coredump-processor[48864]: "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/baloo_file_extractor" 48843 "/var/lib/systemd/coredump/core.baloo_file_extr.1000.c9628f3a239049fc9c807f7148176677.48843.1714934659000000.zst
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu systemd[2201]: Started drkonqi-coredump-launcher@390-48864-0.service - Launch DrKonqi for a systemd-coredump crash (PID 48864/UID 0).
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu drkonqi-coredump-launcher[48891]: the exe in the metadata file doesn't match the exe in the journal entry! aborting "\u008E\fP7\u0015V" "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/baloo_file_extractor"
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu drkonqi-coredump-launcher[48891]: Failed to read metadata from crash () false
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu systemd[1]: systemd-coredump@390-48862-0.service: Deactivated successfully.
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu drkonqi-coredump-launcher[48891]: Nothing handled the dump :O
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu systemd[1]: systemd-coredump@390-48862-0.service: Consumed 8.445s CPU time.
May 05 20:44:28 abdullu systemd[1]: drkonqi-coredump-processor@390-48862-0.service: Deactivated successfully.

While my system doesn’t generate those files with garbled filenames, notice the following log entry:

the exe in the metadata file doesn't match the exe in the journal entry! aborting "\u008E\fP7\u0015V" "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/baloo_file_extractor"

More concerning: instead of such files being created in my system’s filesystem, such content is sometimes spit out to one of my bash shell’s stdout or stderr. This happened on the shell where I resumed a previously suspended baloo file indexer with balooctl resume.

Looking trough bug reports, I have the feeling that the coredump isn’t baloo_file_extractor’s fault, but rather a bug in KIdleTime version 5.103, which got fixed in version 5.104.

Regarding the garbled/corrupted KCrash file creation (or barfing to some process’s stdout/stderr):

7

I only get this problem when I use Wayland, not when i use x11

Im on Debian 12, and KDE 5.27

I note other posting are also running wayland

8

Kcrash creates these files in the home folder, on a continuous basis.

-rw------- 1 … 70 Apr 8 12:43 ‘0’$‘\240\222\362\214’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:43 ‘@’$‘\231\210\375’‘mU’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:42 ‘0’$‘\334\f’‘}’$‘\234’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:42 ’ Z’$‘\360’‘ݗU’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:40 ’ ‘$’\233\234\243\v’‘V’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:35 ’ (q’$‘\215\255’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:32 ‘Щ’$‘\256\221\306’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:26 ‘’$‘\260\200’‘Q%’$‘\367’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:26 ‘’$‘\200’‘uVt’$‘\256’‘U’
-rw------- 1 … 69 Apr 8 12:23 ‘0iJ’$‘\317\303’‘U’

The contents of the files look like this;

[KCrash]
exe=_�5z�U
appname=�L:z�U
apppath=��&z�U
signal=11
pid=7043

1 Like
9

I see this issue popping up from time to time.
I had it too on Fedora 40 with Plasma6. The workaround I found online was to disable Baloo.

balooctl6 suspend
balooctl6 disable

Though I didn’t like that approach and just created a cronjob running every few minutes removing these files using find . You can use a regex matching the initial quote or double quota character and size as a parameter as they are all more or less the same.

From what I read (I can’t recall where) the developers just had no time to fix this bug as there only seem to be one or two working on Baloo… I may be wrong.

But if it’s too much of a burden for you, you can use the workaround I mentioned to disable Baloo, at least until a cause and a solution is found.

Note that I haven’t had any issues on any of my Neon machines.

10

Thanks for the reply, I have tested a few things and it appears that it stops if I use a new user account with default settings. I’ll keep digging as to why it appears to be one specific user account.

1 Like
11

Keep us updated, this is one of these weird “Heisenbugs” that seem to show up from time to time.