Maybe something to report to the dev team of this tool rather then to the team just packaging it?

I just tested latest version 0.8.4.1 (that entered Kali rolling 2 days ago) and I can't reproduce the issue. So it seems that it's fixed.

Please apt udpate && apt full-upgrade and try again!

No, 0.8.4.1 is affected as well. It happens sporadic.

It seems to be a Gnome Bug: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdk-pixbuf/-/issues/292

If you update the installer packages, it won't give an error, bro. If you don't want to deal with constant updates, you should install a tool that allows the system to update itself automatically.

[Deleted]

It seems to be a Gnome Bug: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdk-pixbuf/-/issues/292

Ok so reading this bug, I now can reproduce the issue with:

+--(root@kali)-[~]
+-# HOME=/home/kali ettercap -G

Meaning, running as root user, but setting HOME to point to /home/kali.

Then it crashes:

ettercap 0.8.4.1 copyright 2001-2026 Ettercap Development Team

(ettercap:7423): Gtk-WARNING **: 23:35:52.041: Could not load a pixbuf from icon theme.
This may indicate that pixbuf loaders or the mime database could not be found.
**
Gtk:ERROR:../../../gtk/gtkiconhelper.c:495:ensure_surface_for_gicon: assertion failed (error == NULL): Failed to load /usr/share/icons/Flat-Remix-Blue-Dark/actions/16/image-missing.svg: Loader process exited early with status '1'Command:
 "bwrap" "--unshare-all" "--die-with-parent" "--chdir" "/" "--ro-bind" "/usr" "/usr" "--dev" "/dev" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/ld.so.cache" "/etc/ld.so.cache" "--ro-bind-try" "/nix/store" "/nix/store" "--tmpfs" "/tmp-home" "--tmpfs" "/tmp-run" "--clearenv" "--setenv" "HOME" "/tmp-home" "--setenv" "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" "/tmp-run" "--symlink" "/usr/lib64" "/lib64" "--symlink" "/usr/lib" "/lib" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/fonts/conf.d" "/etc/fonts/conf.d" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf" "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf" "--ro-bind-try" "/var/cache/fontconfig" "/var/cache/fontconfig" "--bind-try" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--setenv" "XDG_CACHE_HOME" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--seccomp" "18" "/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--dbus-fd" "17" (gdk-pixbuf-error-quark, 0)
Bail out! Gtk:ERROR:../../../gtk/gtkiconhelper.c:495:ensure_surface_for_gicon: assertion failed (error == NULL): Failed to load /usr/share/icons/Flat-Remix-Blue-Dark/actions/16/image-missing.svg: Loader process exited early with status '1'Command:  "bwrap" "--unshare-all" "--die-with-parent" "--chdir" "/" "--ro-bind" "/usr" "/usr" "--dev" "/dev" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/ld.so.cache" "/etc/ld.so.cache" "--ro-bind-try" "/nix/store" "/nix/store" "--tmpfs" "/tmp-home" "--tmpfs" "/tmp-run" "--clearenv" "--setenv" "HOME" "/tmp-home" "--setenv" "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" "/tmp-run" "--symlink" "/usr/lib64" "/lib64" "--symlink" "/usr/lib" "/lib" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/fonts/conf.d" "/etc/fonts/conf.d" "--ro-bind-try" "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf" "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf" "--ro-bind-try" "/var/cache/fontconfig" "/var/cache/fontconfig" "--bind-try" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--setenv" "XDG_CACHE_HOME" "/home/kali/.cache/glycin/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--seccomp" "18" "/usr/libexec/glycin-loaders/2+/glycin-svg" "--dbus-fd" "17" (gdk-pixbuf-error-quark, 0)
zsh: IOT instruction  HOME=/home/kali ettercap -G

I'm not sure it's really a GNOME bug, as I understand it it's a configuration that is not supported anymore.

Running as user X and setting home to point at the home of user Y... sounds like something that shouldn't be done, and if that breaks it's on you.

So I'm assuming that the OP set their HOME variable to something else and it's the cause of this issue. Might be wrong, maybe OP can clarify.

We have the problem as well. We have several fresh installations of Kali and ettercap crashes after a while. We are using a non-privileged user and start ettercap via the main menu (ettercap-pkexec). Starting ettercap via shell with sudo also causes the problem.

The crash doesn't happen directly after starting. It takes a while until it crashes sporadic, in most cases after switching from another window back to ettercap.

Thanks for the extra details, very helpful. It's easy to reproduce, just need to wait enough time (a minute of inactivity or something), long enough so that the glycin loaders (in charge of loading SVG images) are terminated. The crash then happens when giving back the focus to ettercap, at this moment glycin tries to spawns a new loader, which fails.

I opened https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glycin/-/issues/287

Does anyone know if it's a new issue, when did it start to happen? Last time glycin changed in Kali was beginning of March: https://pkg.kali.org/pkg/glycin.

Sadly I haven't used ettercap since end of November 2025. There we had the same setup with a fresh installation of Kali, and ettercap worked fine. So this is the latest "checkpoint" I can offer you. Maybe someone else has a newer point.