linux minimserver won't start after update

[simoncn]

I have some idea what could be causing this. Unfortunately it might be a very difficult problem to resolve.

MinimServer is written in Java. For UPnP communications, MinimServer uses a third-party library named ohNet, which is written in C++. The problem is caused by a failure (details not clear) in the ohNet C++ code that initialises the ohNet runtime. This code runs during MinimServer startup.

Unlike Java, C++ is vulnerable to uninitialised memory errors where code accesses memory that has not been initialised correctly. If this memory has the correct value by chance (usually the value zero), the code will work. If this memory has an incorrect value by chance (usually a nonzero value), the code will fail.

My suspicion is that the ohNet intialization code is accessing uninitialised memory that has a value of zero when MinimServer is started for the first time and a nonzero value when MinimServer is restarted. This would explain why MinimServer works when first started and doesn't work when stopped and started again.

As yours is the first report of this problem, it appears the problem doesn't occur with other Linux distributions. This could be because there is something unusual about how PCLinuxOs manages memory, triggering a bug in ohNet that has lain dormant for many years.

Finding the cause of a problem like this would be very difficult if I could reproduce it here and bordering on impossible if I cannot reproduce it here. Also, I am about to leave for a week's holiday and I won't be able to start investigating it until after I return. A possible workaround is to start MinimServer only once after installation and never stop and restart it subsequently. Another option would be to use a different Linux distribution.