darktable won't stop crashing

Software darktable
1

Hi, I have been using DT as a non-tech photographer for many years. Love it.

For the first time I tried to open a lighttable view with about 20 000 + images, ie a whole year worth of photos. It crashed.

But now it won’t reopen. Or, to be precise, reads sidecar files for about 40 seconds, opens for about 5 seconds, then invariably crashes out.

I will attach the full crash log from Apple.

I guess it was a mistake to open such a big lighttable view in terms of images – maybe there is a limit I am unaware of? – but my big question is: what do I have to do to reset the program and get it to open again? I hope the answer doesn’t involve losing critical information (I have configured DT to keep individual sidecar files).

I don’t think it’s a hardware-software issue, but FYI I am running DT v5.2.1.0 on macOS 15.6.1 (24G90) on a Macmini9,1, BootROM 11881.140.96, proc 8:4:4 processors, 16 GB, SMC
Graphics: Apple M1, Apple M1, Built-In

Thanks guys.

Darktable quit unexpectedly 2025-10-29 copy.txt (246.8 KB)

2

Try disabling openCL in the preferences as this often overcomes the crashing. If that works it is probably a driver issue.

Another causes for crashes that I have seen is one corrupt image file or more precisely its associated xmp file. Try opening DT to a new image or at least a different image.

I don’t feel the size of your database (library) is the issue.

More knowledgeable people should be able to offer solutions. I am just throwing a couple of ideas that I have seen.

2 Likes
3

Rename you darktablerc file and restart darktable. The problem is that darktable keeps trying to reload the lighttable collection that caused the crash.

Alternative

edit your darktablerc file and remove everything after the = for the following keys

plugins/lighttable/collect/history0
plugins/lighttable/collect/string0
1 Like
4

Thanks guys, I will try your tips.

To be clear, it’s not the size of my database that I thought caused the crashing, it was that I was trying to open a single lighttable view of 20 000+ images. I am asking (for future caution) whether there is a limit on the number of images in one single lighttable view.

cheers

5

No, I have easily well over 130.000 pictures whe no filter is active. There is something wrong in a file or collection…

6

first of all: the hardware is capable to handle this - and you don’t need to bother with OpenCL drivers on a apple M1 machine :wink:

if you have xcode or xcode commandline tools installed, you can use the debugger to find out where exactly the crash occurs:

run darktable from terminal via
lldb /Applications/darktable/darktable.app/Contents/MacOS/darktable
after the debugger started and shows a prompt, then type r to run darktable.
If darktable crashes the it shows the affected code. (if that’s just machine code, type up until something like human readable c code occurs :wink:

thats useful information to file an issue at github (Sign in to GitHub · GitHub)

1 Like
7

For the last few days, my dt has been crashing every couple of minutes! I’m not sure what changed, or whether its something to do with my linux Mint or OpenCl rather than dt.

I can’t pin down exactly what makes dt crash, but its often when I copy and paste from one image to multiple images.

I am running the latest build, and have rebuilt 3 or 4 times in recent days.

I tried running with the debugger, and after a copy and paste I hit the following crash info:

(darktable:70125): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 10:14:21.730: gtk_check_menu_item_set_active: assertion ‘GTK_IS_CHECK_MENU_ITEM (check_menu_item)’ failed
Process 70125 stopped

  • thread #21, name = ‘worker 2’, stop reason = signal SIGSEGV: address not mapped to object (fault address: 0x55006d756e74)
    frame #0: 0x00007ffff7902800 libdarktable.so`dt_collection_update_query(collection=0x0000555555c59dc0, query_change=DT_COLLECTION_CHANGE_RELOAD, changed_property=DT_COLLECTION_PROP_UNDEF, list=0x000055006d756e74) at collection.c:2533:11
    2530 {
    2531 const int id = GPOINTER_TO_INT(l->data);
    2532 if(i == 0)
    → 2533 dt_util_str_cat(&txt, “%d”, id);
    2534 else
    2535 dt_util_str_cat(&txt, “,%d”, id);
    2536 i++;

Any clues for might be going on, or where the error lies?

8

file an issue at github and provide this output so a developer can check:

1 Like
9
  1. I don’t think you should hijack this thread with a different problem.
  2. there was a recent change to the copy / paste functionality and this could be a bug. Please start an issue in GitHub.
10

Ok understood, I just thought it might be related.

Thanks for the fast response, I’ll head over to github later today