[AstroPy] "double free or corruption" crash: PyFITS + NumPy 1.6.0

[Tom Aldcroft]

I'm seeing some sort of memory or allocation error (glibc detected)
when trying to read a particular FITS file with the following setup:

OS: CentOS-5.6 (64-bit)
Python: 2.7.1.4 (ActiveState distribution)
NumPy: 1.6.0
PyFits: 2.4.0

If I downgrade to NumPy 1.5.0 and re-build everything then I do not
see this problem, while PyFITS 2.2.2 + NumPy 1.6.0 did show this
crash.  I've put the troublesome file on:

   http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~aldcroft/tmp/glibc_detected.fits.gz

This particular file is the output of the Chandra X-ray Center
automated processing which converts raw Chandra telemetry to "Level-0
engineering data".  I've read hundreds of thousands of such files with
Python 2.6, PyFits 2.2.2 and NumPy 1.3.0 without issue.  I recently
upgraded Python, PyFits and NumPy and ran into this problem.  Other
similar Level-0 files were read OK with the new versions, but not the
one in question.  I did a significant amount of regression testing
before doing this version upgrade and didn't see any differences, but
my testing didn't hit this particular file type.  For now I'm back at
NumPy 1.5.0.

Regards,
Tom Aldcroft

-----------------

ccosmos% python
ActivePython 2.7.1.4 (ActiveState Software Inc.) based on
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Feb  7 2011, 11:30:54)
[GCC 4.0.2 20051125 (Red Hat 4.0.2-8)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import pyfits
>>> hdus = pyfits.open('glibc_detected.fits.gz')
>>> dat = hdus[1].data
>>> print dat
*** glibc detected ***
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python: double free
or corruption (!prev): 0x0000000017aea970 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib64/libc.so.6[0x390d07245f]
/lib64/libc.so.6(cfree+0x4b)[0x390d0728bb]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/multiarray.so[0x2b97362a94f2]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/umath.so[0x2b9736462061]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/umath.so[0x2b9736475b27]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/umath.so[0x2b973647739b]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyObject_Call+0x62)[0x41a032]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x4fd4)[0x494954]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5bbd)[0x49553d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5bbd)[0x49553d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5bbd)[0x49553d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x4f7717]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyObject_Call+0x62)[0x41a032]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x421f07]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyObject_Call+0x62)[0x41a032]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x46e99f]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x68bf)[0x49623f]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5c52)[0x4955d2]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5bbd)[0x49553d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x5bbd)[0x49553d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x4f7717]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyObject_Call+0x62)[0x41a032]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_CallObjectWithKeywords+0x55)[0x48ed15]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/multiarray.so[0x2b97362873b4]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(_PyObject_Str+0x69)[0x449cc9]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyObject_Str+0x13)[0x449da3]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x449f7d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyFile_WriteObject+0x7f)[0x42e04f]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x4b8d)[0x49450d]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x675)[0x496de5]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyEval_EvalCode+0x32)[0x4970e2]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyRun_InteractiveOneFlags+0x190)[0x4b9e10]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyRun_InteractiveLoopFlags+0x4e)[0x4ba01e]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(PyRun_AnyFileExFlags+0x4c)[0x4ba12c]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python(Py_Main+0xa0e)[0x415bee]
/lib64/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf4)[0x390d01d994]
/data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python[0x414df9]
======= Memory map: ========
00400000-0054b000 r-xp 00000000 08:04 106168389
  /data/cosmos2/ska/arch/x86_64-linux_CentOS-5/bin/python
0064b000-0068f000 rw-p 0014b000 08:04 106168389
  /data/cosmos2/ska/arcAbort