ceres-solver @1.9.0 library segfaults

[jpanetta (Julian Panetta)]

Installing Ceres through MacPorts and then compiling the following program with the built-in clang on Mac OS 10.9.{3,4} results in intermittent segfault/errors (it seems Ceres is scribbling over memory):

​http://julianpanetta.com/macports_bugs/test_ceres.cc

$ /usr/bin/clang++ -g -O0 -std=c++11 -I/opt/local/include -I/opt/local/include/eigen3 test_ceres.cc -L/opt/local/lib -lceres -lglog -lgflags -lcholmod -lcxsparse -framework accelerate -o broken
 $ ./broken
0
1
[1]    75517 segmentation fault  ./broken
 $ ./broken
0
1
2
3
libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type std::length_error: vector
[1]    75515 abort      ./broken

Sometimes the program runs to completion, but usually it segfaults in the ceres::Solve call. The std::length_error shown above is much more rare (happens because vectors v1s and v2s are getting scribbled over). This was a very difficult bug to track down, and unfortunately I haven't been able to simplify the test case further. I am filing the bug here rather than upstream because the following setups do not exhibit the problem, leading me to suspect the error is in the MacPorts build:

1. Building ceres-solver manually (both from git repo, and from "latest stable release" link at ceres-solver.org), compiling test_ceres.cc with /usr/bin/clang;
2. Compiling test_ceres.cc with clang-mp-3.{4,5}, linking against MacPorts libceres.a

Those made me suspect an ABI incompatibility with the MacPorts binary, but strangely...

• Doesn't work: Installing ceres-solver from source MacPorts (using the -s option), compiling test_ceres.cc with /usr/bin/clang
• Works: Building ceres-solver manually using /usr/bin/clang, compiling test_ceres.cc with macports clang 3.{4,5}
• Works: Building ceres-solver manually using clang-mp-3.4, compiling test_ceres.cc with /usr/bin/clang
• Fails to link: Building ceres-solver manually using clang-mp-3.5, compiling test_ceres.cc with with any compiler (including clang-mp-3.5!)

In summary, manually building ceres-solver using cmake works in all cases I tested regardless of compiler (except the link failure case), while installing through MacPorts (from either binary or source) only works with clang-mp-3.{4,5} and not /usr/bin/clang. To me this suggests there's something wrong with how MacPorts configures ceres-solver, but if we decide that the bug lies upstream I'm happy to report the issue at ​https://code.google.com/p/ceres-solver/issues/list

For reference, my "built-in" clang is:

 $ clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 5.1 (clang-503.0.40) (based on LLVM 3.4svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.2.0
Thread model: posix

[mamoll (Mark Moll)]

I can reproduce the problem. The portfile for ceres-solver is pretty minimal, so I doubt the problem is there. It could be somewhere else in MacPorts (env variables, cmake arguments), but it could just as easily be in ceres-solver.

Could you file an upstream ticket? It'd nice to know if this is something that has already been fixed (or is a known problem). You can reference this ticket.

[jpanetta (Julian Panetta)]

Thanks for trying it. I filed an issue at: ​https://code.google.com/p/ceres-solver/issues/detail?id=150

[mamoll (Mark Moll)]

This issue has been fixed since the 1.10 release. See ​https://github.com/ceres-solver/ceres-solver/issues/151.