# Racket crashes with "invalid memory reference" **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions & Answers\ **Created:** [August 10, 2023, 3:56am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-crashes-with-invalid-memory-reference/2206 "2023-08-10T03:56:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![LiberalArtist](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/liberalartist/32/151_2.png) [@LiberalArtist](https://racket.discourse.group/u/LiberalArtist)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 6:32pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-crashes-with-invalid-memory-reference/2206/6 "2023-08-10T18:32:54Z")
> [@wurmli](#): > > I had found on Racket Blog to v8.4 how to change from expeditor to readline. The result looks like this: > > ```scheme > wurmli@cirrus7:~$ racket > Welcome to Racket v8.9 [cs]. > > ,input readline > > > wurmli@cirrus7:~$ racket > Welcome to Racket v8.9 [cs]. > invalid memory reference. Some debugging context lost > > ``` > > and the terminal has to be killed. If it's useful, I looked into this a little with a Trixie podman container (from a Bookworm host). With just `libedit` installed, I got (having previously done `,input readline`): ```scheme root@04bc7ba8ba59:/racket# ./bin/racket Welcome to Racket v8.9 [cs]. ; Warning: no readline support (invalid memory reference. Some debugging context lost) > ``` I then did `raco pkg install readline-gpl` and `apt install libreadline8`, which got me to a worse state: ```scheme root@04bc7ba8ba59:/racket# ./bin/racket Welcome to Racket v8.9 [cs]. invalid memory reference. Some debugging context lost ^C; user break [,bt for context] ^C; user break [,bt for context] ^C; user break [,bt for context] ,q ^[^[^[ ^C; user break [,bt for context] ^C; user break [,bt for context] ^C; user break [,bt for context] ``` (And Ctrl-D didn't get me out of this.) I'd thought about trying `racket-x86_64-linux-natipkg-3` because the Mac equivalents include libedit, but it looks like the Linux ones do not, and I definitely never advocate adding more to those packages other than as a last resort. > [@wurmli](#): > > I run Debian testing and a custom install of Racket v8.9 - as Debian is stuck with v8.7. FWIW, on Bookworm I get Racket by: ```scheme sudo apt install guix guix pull guix install racket ``` (I maintain the Guix packaging of Racket.) We also have `racket-minimal`, `zuo`, and `chez-scheme-for-racket` (in addition to upstream `chez-scheme`) packaged. I also expect, now that Bookworm has been released, David will probably update Racket in Debian testing soon, though if I were him I'd wait until after the imminent Racket 8.10 release. Generally he keeps the packaging in testing and backports very up-to-date. Sometimes he's landed updates in Debian before I;ve gotten them into Guix, even though Guix has a rolling release model. > [@mflatt](#): > > I'm not sure at what point our distibrutions should require newer version of Linux. Meanwhile, the only solution I can offer is to build from source or use a snapshot that's built on a Ubuntu 20 or 22.04 as available via [https://snapshot.racket-lang.org/](https://snapshot.racket-lang.org/). I don't have a principled answer, but, tangentially, this reminded me that I'd found in [Native library problem on package-build service · Issue #2 · libgit2-racket/libgit2 · GitHub](https://github.com/libgit2-racket/libgit2/issues/2) that your `mflatt/pkg-build-deps-min` Docker image is [still based on](https://github.com/racket/pkg-build/blob/71c379d2997049780186d104e5464780c28efb27/examples/docker/pkg-build-deps-min/Dockerfile) Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial, which is getting to be quite old indeed. At least when I wrote my [related notes](https://github.com/libgit2-racket/native-libs/blob/0c719ea327f30a1e5e7abc13ddfdd2ad1b065316/guix/old-stable-libc.scm#L22-L46), the Racket releases were building on the slightly newer Debian 9 Stretch (June 2017), which has been out of [LTS](https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/) support for a year and is only covered by the even-more-limited [ELTS](https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended). I saw in [What is the Racket roadmap? - #6 by mflatt](https://racket.discourse.group/t/what-is-the-racket-roadmap/2204/6) that you are planning to look at the `racket/draw` native libraries relatively soon. I don't have it all paged in, but I know I've had or heard about various issues and ideas at least somewhat related to native libraries; I can try to make a list relatively soon if something like that might be useful. --- _[View the full topic](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-crashes-with-invalid-memory-reference/2206)._