.Markku Reunanen.

Zoom 5.17.5 Crash on Linux

February 6th, 2024

Today I had to update the Zoom client on Linux to 5.17.5 because someone had started a video call with a newer version than what I had. Usually this has caused only irritation, but this time the program just kept freezing, eating memory and finally crashing with a segfault in libQt5Core. I had just updated to newer Nvidia drivers too, but reverting to the old version didn’t help. On another machine with an integrated Intel GPU there were no issues, which pointed the finger at Nvidia as well. Things started looking gloomy, as reinstalling Zoom was of no use and reverting to an older version would not let me join most calls. There is the Web version, sure, but no thanks.

Initial googling around turned up only old problems with useless solutions, but after finding this things took an upward turn. Apparently the crash has to do with downloaded emojis (that haven’t worked anyway), because Zoom tries to load them over and over, leading to a massive memory leak and then segfault. Luckily the temporary solution is easy – delete the .zoom directory in your home directory:

rm -r ~/.zoom

---

Och samma på finska. Tuorein Zoom (5.17.5) jäi ensin jumiin, söi muistin loppuun ja sitten kaatui. Olin juuri päivittänyt tuoreempiin Nvidian ajureihin, jotka vaikuttivat ensin syypäältä, mutta vanhojen palautus ei auttanut eikä myöskään Zoomin uudelleenasennus tyhjästä. Täältä löytyi onneksi lopulta vinkki ja jonkinlainen selitys ongelmaan: jostain syystä asiakas jää lataamaan loputtomasti ylimääräisiä emojeja, jos sellaisia koneelle on asentanut. Väliaikaisratkaisuna voi poistaa kotihakemistosta hakemiston .zoom ja johan soi:

rm -r ~/.zoom

Filed under: linux,softat