I had to rebuild because earlier I removed FLTK from the build.

But I did so, and indeed, ./run-octave -cli with native graphics works fine. I do get these warnings occasionally, but that's it:

2014-01-16 10:56:11.003 octave-cli[2946:d0f] CoreText performance note: Client called CTFontCreateWithName() using name "Arial" and got font with PostScript name "ArialMT". For best performance, only use PostScript names when calling this API.

You you should not have to rebuild. I can't remember the option that must be passed to run-octave, but you always have the option to install octave (make install) and launch "octave-cli" (that will be in the bin directory of your install path).

Ah, that's good to know, but since fltk seems problematic on both, perhaps the default toolkit should be gnuplot for both.

The "--no-gui" option in run-octave runs octave (and thus fltk graphics toolkit) in a second thread, after launching a QApplication in the mains thread. This implies gui operations (graphics) in another thread than the main one, which is not allowed on apple platform.

Sorry for insisting: in order to test pure cli, with octave and fltk in the main thread, you have to install and launch octave-cli binary. If this is what you did there is a regression: fltk used to work in pure cli mode.

AFAICS, this is a duplicate of [1]. I am even surprised that the crash does not occur immediately at the first figure. With the "--no-gui" option, the problem is expected to remain, but not in cli mode.


[1]https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?40242

I'm honestly not surprised. I certainly understand that debugging these things is not trivial. There's a reason, I'm sure, that the Mac binary builds use gnuplot!

If it's remotely useful to anyone, if I quit before a segfault, I often get this assertion error:

2014-01-15 19:56:27.881 octave-gui[3853:240b] *** Assertion failure in -[NSThemeFrame lockFocus], /SourceCache/AppKit/AppKit-1265/AppKit.subproj/NSView.m:7041
2014-01-15 19:56:27.881 octave-gui[3853:240b] unlockFocus called too many times. Called on <NSThemeFrame: 0x7f8232f85c70>.
2014-01-15 19:56:27.882 octave-gui[3853:240b] -[NSThemeFrame(0x7f8232f85c70) lockFocus] failed with window=0x7f82345029f0, windowNumber=549, [self isHiddenOrHasHiddenAncestor]=0
2014-01-15 19:56:27.891 octave-gui[3853:240b] (
        0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8cb7c41c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
        1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff8c88de75 objc_exception_throw + 43
        2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8cb7c1f8 +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 104
        3   Foundation                          0x00007fff8cd83c61 -[NSAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 189
        4   AppKit                              0x00007fff9301ec6d -[NSView lockFocus] + 233
        5   AppKit                              0x00007fff9301cbf4 -[NSView _displayRectIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:] + 1271
        6   AppKit                              0x00007fff92ffc63a -[NSView displayIfNeeded] + 1680
        7   AppKit                              0x00007fff9306189e _handleWindowNeedsDisplayOrLayoutOrUpdateConstraints + 884
        8   AppKit                              0x00007fff93635cd1 __83-[NSWindow _postWindowNeedsDisplayOrLayoutOrUpdateConstraintsUnlessPostingDisabled]_block_invoke1331 + 46
        9   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8caad0a7 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 23
        10  CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8caad017 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 391
        11  CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8ca9e7b8 __CFRunLoopRun + 776
        12  CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8ca9e275 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 309
        13  HIToolbox                           0x00007fff95f8ef0d RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 226
        14  HIToolbox                           0x00007fff95f8eb85 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 173
        15  HIToolbox                           0x00007fff95f8eabc _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 65
        16  AppKit                              0x00007fff92ec528e _DPSNextEvent + 1434
        17  AppKit                              0x00007fff92ec48db -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 122
        18  AppKit                              0x00007fff92eb89cc -[NSApplication run] + 553
        19  QtGui                               0x0000000111cad037 _ZN19QEventDispatcherMac13processEventsE6QFlagsIN10QEventLoop17ProcessEventsFlagEE + 519
        20  QtCore                              0x00000001118dc6e7 _ZN10QEventLoop13processEventsE6QFlagsINS_17ProcessEventsFlagEE + 79
        21  QtCore                              0x00000001118dc84a _ZN10QEventLoop4execE6QFlagsINS_17ProcessEventsFlagEE + 346
        22  QtCore                              0x00000001118df4f9 _ZN16QCoreApplication4execEv + 199
        23  liboctgui.0.dylib                   0x000000010d47d463 _Z16octave_start_guiiPPcb + 351
        24  libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff951f65fd start + 1
        25  ???                                 0x0000000000000009 0x0 + 9
)

I am pretty sure that drawnow is called from
figure(), but...

What happens if you follow each figure() by a
drawnow()?

Experience on Linux machines is that fltk plotting
is much more stable than gnuplot, and quicker.
The gnuplot pipe mechanism becomes a problem if you
try to output a long (like 30-40) series of complex plots.
Something gets comfused and the plots become incorrect.

Your mileage may differ on OS X.

First, are you using gnuplot of fltk?
This may be another manifestation of some
malfunction, possibly a race condition,
associated with drawnow.

The most recent bug report on this is 41216,
but there have been quite a few others.

There was a time when this problem seemed to have
"gone away" but I do not think a precise fix was
ever found. So, it appears to be back as expected.

If you look into this you will find that the
drawnow related flow of control is fairly hard to
follow.

Good luck!