panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference

[0mkara]

OS :

Fedora 20 || Linux mount-kailash 3.19.8-100.fc20.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue May 12 17:08:50 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Geth version : 1.1.3

Git commit : 4813a39

Go version :

GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCHAR="6"
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOOS="linux"
GOPATH=""
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/lib/golang"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/lib/golang/pkg/tool/linux_amd64"
CC="gcc"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fmessage-length=0"
CXX="g++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"

Error description :

I followed go-ethereum installation instruction and did the following things -

git clone go-ethereum.git
make
build/bin/geth

Then I am getting this error.

Error log : http://fpaste.org/269002/59583314/raw/

[tgerring]

Looks like it might be a bug with Fedora: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26575662/user-current-not-implemented-on-linux-amd64-with-fresh-golang-on-fedora

I don't see anywhere that the Go version is mentioned above? If you're on 1.4, you may want to try upgrading to 1.5 first and see if that resolves anything

[0mkara]

I was on the IRC with this problem. I was suggested to change DefaultDataDir() to return my current dir where the files reside. That solved the problem. Just issued a bug report for things to resolve permanently. 👍

[Gustav-Simonsson]

Looks like it should work with Go 1.5: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1135152#c12

Meanwhile if someone else runs into this on Fedora you can hack it by changing this function: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/master/common/path.go#L102 to:

func DefaultDataDir() string {
    return "/home/user/.ethereum"
}

[fjl]

I added "show stopper" because it doesn't start at all if this error occurs. This is also an issue on android.
We should update the code to print a proper error if the home directory cannot be detected.

[obscuren]

Understood, but it's not a show stopper. If all major target platforms would suffer from the same behavior it'd be classified as show stopper. At the moment there are no android users and hardly any fedora users (does not mean it shouldn't get fixed).

[0mkara]

Just returning the current path is working for me. Hope it will be a easy fix. It is definitely the golang bug as this bug report says.