Looks like it gets triggered inside XftFontLoadGlyphs -> …/.libs/libXft.so.2.3.2(XftFontLoadGlyphs+0x716) [0x7f415551fd16] -> …/.libs/libXft.so.2.3.2(XftGlyphExtents+0x14b) [0x7f415551cf6b] -> [backtrace enters emacs proper] -> … (xftfont_text_extents) but it would appear that the cause is that Xft can't process colour fonts like Noto Color Emoji. So we either have to: - hack on libXft until it can, and make that a requirement - use some other mechanism for colour fonts - exclude fonts like N-C-E /before/ we get to Xft so we don't crash https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji/issues/183