OBS crashes when trying to access settings

K

kristhor

New Member
I'm running Zorin OS, latest version. My streaming has worked fine for the most part, but then i noticed problems with i was streamin Kingdom Hearts and I was doing something on OBS and then going back to Kingdom Hearts that sometimes crashed my whole system. Then when I was streaming or tried to stream Deep Rock Galactic I realized OBS crashes everytime I try to go to settings. I have tried everything, OBS flatpak version and system version. Disabling Browser sources, fiddled with Nvidia drivers. Nothing seems to work. Pipewire seemed to be the culprit, but not so sure anymore.
 
I can also confirm this. Running Zorin 18.1 Core. OBS was working just fine before. Installed the flatpak version, directly from the ppa repository using apt. Nothing seems to fix the crash when trying to access settings. Even tried debugging with llms but still couldn't resolve. Any help please?
 

SOLVED: OBS crashes when opening Settings on Zorin OS 18​

FIX
Run
Bash: 
rm -rf ~/.cache/fontconfig
fc-cache -f -v

Then reboot and try OBS again. This fixed the crash for me.

What happened​

I was running Zorin OS 18 with OBS Studio. OBS would launch normally, but opening Settings immediately caused a segmentation fault.

I tried:
  • OBS 32.2.0
  • OBS 32.2.2
  • A fresh OBS configuration
  • The Flatpak version
  • Xorg instead of Wayland
  • QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb
None of these fixed it.

I eventually ran the Flatpak version through GDB and got:

Bash: 
Thread 1 "obs" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.

0x00007ffff0bb924c in FcCharSetFindLeafForward.lto_priv.0 ()
        from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1

So the crash was occurring inside Fontconfig, specifically libfontconfig.so.1, rather than OBS itself.

I checked the Fontconfig versions:
Bash: 
fc-match --version

Host:
Bash: 
fontconfig version 2.15.0

Flatpak:
Bash: 
flatpak run --command=sh com.obsproject.Studio -c 'fc-match --version'

gave:
Code: 
fontconfig version 2.17.1

The solution was simply to remove and rebuild the user's Fontconfig cache:
Bash: 
rm -rf ~/.cache/fontconfig
fc-cache -f -v

After rebooting, OBS opened Settings normally.

There are also recent reports from other Zorin OS 18 users experiencing crashes, blank windows and other application problems after recent updates, with the Fontconfig cache being the common factor. (Zorin Forum)

There is also an Ubuntu bug report documenting Fontconfig cache problems on Ubuntu 24.04-based systems, including Zorin OS 18, where rebuilding the user's Fontconfig cache resolves the issue. (mail-archive.com)

If you're experiencing this OBS crash on Zorin OS 18, I'd try the two commands above before reinstalling OBS or changing graphics/Wayland settings.
 
kristhor said:
I'm running Zorin OS, latest version. My streaming has worked fine for the most part, but then i noticed problems with i was streamin Kingdom Hearts and I was doing something on OBS and then going back to Kingdom Hearts that sometimes crashed my whole system. Then when I was streaming or tried to stream Deep Rock Galactic I realized OBS crashes everytime I try to go to settings. I have tried everything, OBS flatpak version and system version. Disabling Browser sources, fiddled with Nvidia drivers. Nothing seems to work. Pipewire seemed to be the culprit, but not so sure anymore.
Click to expand...
Found a fix. Check the thread. Hope this helps you as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top