Linux Dropbox doesn't start: Illegal instruction

[solamour]

I've been running Dropbox v58.3.88 on my 32-bit Linux machine for quite a while. It has been complaining that the version I'm running is old, so I upgraded to the latest (v62.4.103 as of now). When I started it, dropbox gave me the following error message and stopped. There were no more messages.

$ .dropbox-dist/dropboxd
dropbox: locating interpreter
dropbox: logging to /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-rqPRdb
dropbox: initializing
dropbox: initializing python 3.5.4
dropbox: setting program path '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/dropbox'
dropbox: setting home path '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103'
dropbox: setting python path '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103:/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/python-packages-35.zip'
dropbox: python initialized
dropbox: running dropbox
dropbox: setting args
dropbox: applying overrides
dropbox: running main script
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._constant_time.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/linuxffi.pthread._linuxffi_pthread.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/tornado.speedups.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/cpuid.compiled._cpuid.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/linuxffi.resolv.compiled._linuxffi_resolv.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/linuxffi.gnu.compiled._linuxffi_gnu.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/solamour/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-62.4.103/linuxffi.sys.compiled._linuxffi_sys.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so'
Illegal instruction

 How do I get additional logs, so that at least I'd know what the problem is?

[Walter]

Our latest stable version of the desktop application is 62.4.107 at the moment @solamour - if you've ensured you're meeting our minimum requirements, I'd suggest that you tried our offline installer directly. You can find it here: 

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Desktop-client-builds/Stable-Build-63-4-107/m-p/317555#M5151

I hope this helps to some extent and please keep me posted on your progress!

[solamour]

I just tried "63.4.107", but the result was same; right after I start it, dropbox stops with "Illegal instruction". Then I realized that even though my system has about 4GB of swap space, it has less than 256MB of RAM, which isn't upgradable. This is slightly disappointing, because the old version was slow but at least worked.

[whatcould]

I have this same issue, and I have 8g of ram! It fails at the same point with this error:

$<2>03:47:56.447$<2> $<2>03:47:56.447$<2> $<2>03:47:56.447$<2> thread panicked while processing panic. aborting.
Illegal instruction (core dumped)

I attempted installing on various hosted VMs (Linode, AWS/Lightsail, Digital Ocean), newly created with the newest Ubuntu or Debian versions — and I got the same error every time.

Dropbox support is not helpful — every message is a canned copy-paste response that has nothing to do with my question (eg "you said you are installing the desktop version of dropbox"... no, I didn't.)

[simmm]

Same error here. This linux box is running the i386 arch of Debian 8 (jessie); the processor is Athlon XP. I guess, the recent 32 bit builds of the dropbox daemon use instructions (like SSE2) which are not supported by all 32 bit processors.

[whatcould]

That's a helpful guess as to the problem — maybe it's an issue with the processors these VMs are running on?

I'm running 64-bit builds on Xeon Skylake processors. It's very difficult to get a hosted linux box that *doesn't* run Xeon though. I did get it to run successfully on a VM running locally (running a Intel Core i7).

[whatcould]

FYI, simmm and I both posted gdb debugging output, but those messages were marked as spam.

Gist is that the error seems to happen in linuxffi.sys.compiled._linuxffi_sys  (nucleus_python.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so).

[simmm · Accepted solution]

whatcould, now I just did

mv nucleus_python.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so __nucleus_python.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so

in effect canceling loading of the faulty plugin, and dropbox is now running and syncing... I do not know how risky to my data is what I am doing right now though...

[solamour]

whatcould, how do I run gdb with dropbox, so that at least I'd know where the problem might be? Do I just do "gdb .dropbox-dist/dropboxd"?

simmm, after renaming "nucleus_python.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so" to something else, I too am able to run Dropbox. I sure hope this won't cause a massive file deletion.

[simmm]

solamour, you can do this:

$ cd ~/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-63.4.107
$ gdb ./dropbox

Then, when in gdb, issue the "run" command, you will see something like this:

(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/xxx/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-63.4.107/dropbox

[ .... many lines skipped .... ]

Program received signal SIGILL, Illegal instruction.
0xb4e96710 in ?? ()
   from /home/xxx/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86-63.4.107/nucleus_python.cpython-35m-i386-linux-gnu.so
(gdb)

Next, you can do "disas" (disassemble) or "bt" (backtrace):

(gdb) disas 0xb4e96710,0xb4e96710+0x10
Dump of assembler code from 0xb4e96710 to 0xb4e96720:
=> 0xb4e96710:  movsd  0x130(%esp),%xmm0
   0xb4e96719:  mov    0x138(%esp),%eax
End of assembler dump.

The faulty instruction is

=> 0xb4e96710:  movsd  0x130(%esp),%xmm0