Linking fails with: in function `main.cold': undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'

Question

I'm trying to build, using CMake, a program involving C++ and CUDA-C++ code. It used to build file, several months ago, but - now am getting a linker error I'm not familiar with:

in function `main.cold': ... undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'`

I'll attach the full link command and output below. Naturally, my program does not contain this sort of a function; and its double-underscore prefix suggests it's internal to the standard library or even the compiler. So - why is this symbol used in my program, on the one hand, and not available, on the other hand? And how can I get my program to link and run?

Notes:

The distribution is Devuan Excalibur GNU/Linux.
CUDA version is 12.8 (released March 3rd 2025; nvcc 12.8.93)
My default system compiler is GCC 14, but the CMake toolchain uses g++-13 for C++ compilation, for reasons.
CMake version 4.0.2

The command line:

/usr/bin/c++ -O3 -DNDEBUG \
-Wl,--dependency-file=examples/CMakeFiles/jacobiCudaGraphs.dir/link.d \
examples/CMakeFiles/jacobiCudaGraphs.dir/modified_cuda_samples/jacobiCudaGraphs/main.cpp.o \
examples/CMakeFiles/jacobiCudaGraphs.dir/modified_cuda_samples/jacobiCudaGraphs/jacobi.cu.o \
-o examples/bin/jacobiCudaGraphs \
-L/usr/local/cuda-12.8/targets/x86_64-linux/lib/stubs \
-L/usr/local/cuda-12.8/targets/x86_64-linux/lib  \
-L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/13 -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/cuda-12.8/lib64  \
/usr/local/cuda-12.8/targets/x86_64-linux/lib/stubs/libcuda.so \
/usr/local/cuda-12.8/lib64/libcudart.so \
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.a \
-ldl  -lm  -lrt \
/usr/local/cuda-12.8.1/targets/x86_64-linux/lib/libcufilt.a \
-lcudadevrt  -lcudart_static  -lrt  -lpthread  -ldl

yields the following errors:

/usr/bin/ld: examples/CMakeFiles/jacobiCudaGraphs.dir/modified_cuda_samples/jacobiCudaGraphs/main.cpp.o: in function `main.cold':
main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x119f): undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'
/usr/bin/ld: main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x1653): undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'
/usr/bin/ld: main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x1882): undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'
/usr/bin/ld: main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x197d): undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'
/usr/bin/ld: main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x1a1b): undefined reference to `__cxa_call_terminate'
/usr/bin/ld: examples/CMakeFiles/jacobiCudaGraphs.dir/modified_cuda_samples/jacobiCudaGraphs/main.cpp.o:main.cpp:(.text.unlikely+0x1b54): more undefined references to `__cxa_call_terminate' follow
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

See What is an undefined reference/unresolved external symbol error and how do I fix it?. — Jesper Juhl
– Jesper Juhl, Commented Nov 10 at 16:33
@JesperJuhl: "Everybody" knows what undefined references/unresolved symbols are, that's not what I was asking. Edited to clarify. — einpoklum
– einpoklum, Commented Nov 10 at 20:54

einpoklum · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-10 08:22:27Z

tl;dr: Try re-running CMake cleanly with -DCMAKE_CUDA_HOST_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-13.

Longer answer:

Your problem is almost certainly due to mixing GCC-14-compiled and GCC-13-compiled object code.

You see, GCC 14 introduced a __cxa_call_terminate() function, the definition of which is supposed to be found within libstdc++; but older versions of the library, which older versions of GCC direct compiler code to use - don't have this function. Your past success was possibly due to your using GCC-13 consistently, which you no longer are, perhaps due to updates to your distribution.

This has bitten many projects in some form or another, earlier this year: Mozilla, Gentoo, FreeBSD ... - you're actually late to the party.

There can conceivably be multiple causes for this 13-cum-14 mixing, though. Two measures to take are:

Pass -DCMAKE_CUDA_HOST_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-13 (or whatever the path to your g++-13 executable is), to your CMake configuration command.
Clear & rebuild your CMakeCache.txt

if that doesn't work, scour your CMakeCache.txt for mentions of executables or libraries or directories associated with GCC 14, or associated with GCC without a version designation.

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