A customer reported that while he was running Softimage 2011 fine on Ubuntu, Softimage 2012 crashed at startup.

The problem turned out to be the microsecond character (µs) in $XSI_HOME/Application/spdl/MentalRayOptions.spdl:

	Parameter "DiagnosticMaxPixelTime"
	{
		GUID		= {0A2DA6AE-B850-4189-BE71-BD244F8938A4};	// GUID_MentalRayOptions_DiagnosticMaxPixelTime
		Label		= "Max Pixel Time (µs)";

For some reason, this causes problems on some Linux flavors, but not on Fedora.
The solution was to edit the .spdl, and remove the “(µs)” from the string “Max Pixel Time (µs)”.

Hat Tip to Sean Donnelly for the solution.

For reference, here’s the gbd backtrace for the startup crash. Note that it pretty clearly points to some problem related the spdl 😉

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00007ffff4bd588a in CSIString::AllocBSTR() const () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libsigeneral.so
(gdb) bt full
#0  0x00007ffff4bd588a in CSIString::AllocBSTR() const () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libsigeneral.so
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x00007ffff56e59ea in SpdlValue2Variant(miSpdl_PropertyValue const&, tagVARIANT&) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlparse.so
No symbol table info available.
#2  0x00007fffce5976cc in CSpdlPopulate::AddPropertyDefaults(miSpdl_Property*, CComPtr&) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#3  0x00007fffce597a05 in CSpdlPopulate::AddPropertyDefaults(miSpdl_Property*) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#4  0x00007fffce597b04 in CSpdlPopulate::AddToParamDict(miSpdl_Property*) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#5  0x00007fffce597baf in CSpdlPopulate::AddToParamDict(miSpdl_Section*) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#6  0x00007fffce598e90 in CSpdlPopulate::DoAll() () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#7  0x00007fffce59513b in CSpdlParser::DoParse(tagS3DSPDLPARSERINFO*) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libspdlpop.so
No symbol table info available.
#8  0x00007ffff5ea0da1 in DSCompileSPDLEx(_GUID const&, IUnknown*, char const*) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libdssdk10.so
No symbol table info available.
#9  0x00007fffca3b7600 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libmentalray.so
No symbol table info available.
#10 0x00007fffd9a9b041 in C3DActiveData::Initialize(_GUID const&) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libactivedata.so
No symbol table info available.
#11 0x00007fffd9a7f39c in C3DActiveData::Construct() () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libactivedata.so
No symbol table info available.
#12 0x00007fffca3b965e in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libmentalray.so
No symbol table info available.
#13 0x00007fffca3c6a76 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libmentalray.so
No symbol table info available.
#14 0x00007fffca3c8500 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libmentalray.so
No symbol table info available.
#15 0x00007ffff5e8eab4 in SICreateInstanceEx(_GUID const&, IUnknown*, unsigned int, _GUID const&, void**) () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libdssdk10.so
No symbol table info available.
#16 0x00007fffca38f8c2 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libmentalray.so
No symbol table info available.
#17 0x00007fffced89f50 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/librendercore.so
No symbol table info available.
#18 0x00007fffcedc4c14 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/librendercore.so
No symbol table info available.
#19 0x00007fffcedc5a2c in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/librendercore.so
No symbol table info available.
#20 0x00007fffcedc674d in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/librendercore.so
No symbol table info available.
#21 0x00007fffd30530af in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libscnmgr.so
No symbol table info available.
#22 0x00007fffd3055bbd in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libscnmgr.so
No symbol table info available.
#23 0x00007fffd3014899 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libscnmgr.so
No symbol table info available.
#24 0x00007fffd304853a in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libscnmgr.so
No symbol table info available.
#25 0x00007fffd304bc15 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libscnmgr.so
No symbol table info available.
#26 0x00007fffdf7f4b69 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libdssdkco.so
No symbol table info available.
#27 0x00007fffdf7f38b2 in ?? () from /usr/Softimage/Softimage_2012/Application/bin/libdssdkco.so
No symbol table info available.