Okay, but this is then a big issue IMO. For Mu3e we do this in every frontend and I also checked again all of these watches are broken at the moment (with commit 3ad98c5 they worked).
 
In the old style we did for example (see https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/src/develop/examples/crfe/crfe.cxx):

INT frontend_init()
{
   HNDLE hKey;

   // create Settings structure in ODB
   db_create_record(hDB, 0, "Equipment/Clock Reset/Settings", strcomb1(cr_settings_str).c_str());
   db_find_key(hDB, 0, "/Equipment/Clock Reset", &hKey);
   assert(hKey);

   db_watch(hDB, hKey, cr_settings_changed, NULL);

   /*
    * Set our transition sequence. The default is 500. Setting it
    * to 600 means we are called AFTER most other clients.
    */
   cm_set_transition_sequence(TR_START, 600);

   return CM_SUCCESS;
}

I thought this will be the same (under the hood) in the current odbxx way via:

odb settings("Equipment/Clock Reset/Settings");
settings.watch(cr_settings_changed);

Best,
Marius


> Well, the object *went* out of scope. For my code it‘s hard to realize this, so the error reporting is poor. Also the first object should have the same
> problem. Just by accident that it does not crash.
> 
> Stefan 
> 
> > This is not the case here. Note that the error message: "Callback received for a midas::odb object which went out of scope" is not called! The segmentation fault happens later line 96.
> > 
> > > The answer is in the error message: „Object went out of scope“. When your frontent_init() exits, the odb objects are destroyed. When you get a callback, it‘s linked to the
> > > destroyed object. This is like if you have a local string and pass a reference to that string in the return of the function.
> > > 
> > > Use a global object (bad) or use „new“ (potential memory leak). I would use a global structure which holds all odb objects.
> > > 
> > > Stefan
> > >  
> > > > 
> > > > last week I was running MIDAS with the commit 3ad98c5. Today I updated MIDAS and now all my watch functions are crashing. Attached I have a minimal example frontend of the problem.
> > > > 
> > > > In our software we have two functions one which sets up the ODB values of the frontend and another one which sets up all watch functions. So overall we connect two time to the ODB during fronend_init one time to create the values and one time to create the watch. In the example code a simple version of this setup is shown:
> > > > 
> > > > INT frontend_init() {
> > > > 
> > > >   cm_msg(MINFO, "frontend_init() setup", "Test FE");
> > > > 
> > > >   odb settings = {
> > > >     {"Test", 123},
> > > >     {"sub", {}}
> > > >   };
> > > >   settings.connect_and_fix_structure("/Equipment/Test FE/Settings");
> > > >   // settings.watch(watch); <-- this works without segmentation fault
> > > > 
> > > >   odb new_settings("/Equipment/Test FE/Settings");
> > > >   new_settings.watch(watch); // <-- here I am getting a segmentation fault
> > > > 
> > > >   return CM_SUCCESS;
> > > > }
> > > > 
> > > > When I directly set the watch everything runs fine however, when I create a new ODB object and use this one to set a watch I am getting the following segmentation fault:
> > > > 
> > > > Process 18474 stopped
> > > > * thread #1, queue = 'com.apple.main-thread', stop reason = EXC_BAD_ACCESS (code=1, address=0x34)
> > > >     frame #0: 0x000000010004fa38 test_fe`midas::odb::watch_callback(hDB=<unavailable>, hKey=<unavailable>, index=0, info=0x00006000002001c0) at odbxx.cxx:96:25 [opt]
> > > >    93  	      if (po->m_data == nullptr)
> > > >    94  	         mthrow("Callback received for a midas::odb object which went out of scope");
> > > >    95  	      midas::odb *poh = search_hkey(po, hKey);
> > > > -> 96  	      poh->m_last_index = index;
> > > >    97  	      po->m_watch_callback(*poh);
> > > >    98  	      poh->m_last_index = -1;
> > > >    99  	   }
> > > > 
> > > > Best,
> > > > Marius