I am experiencing this issue too.
I am running Arch Linux, i3bar v4.20.1, i3status v2.14
I have done the following suggestion which did not resolve the issue
output_format = "i3bar" in the general block of the i3status config
In my case, it seems to be related to using the path_exists module, which when it fails it's check, results in the error message in i3bar but when run from xterm, it prints the format_down message with no problem.
However i have also seen segfaults from xterm too depending on what combination of path_exists and disk is used.
See segfault.txt for journal entry.
EDIT:
I found my problem with path_exists - i needed to add the path attribute to the module. Still it would be good if it failed in a cleaner way :)
Originally posted by @sworthiness in https://github.com/i3/i3status/issues/128#issuecomment-1152628681
I am experiencing this issue too. I am running Arch Linux, i3bar v4.20.1, i3status v2.14
I have done the following suggestion which did not resolve the issue
In my case, it seems to be related to using the path_exists module, which when it fails it's check, results in the error message in i3bar but when run from xterm, it prints the format_down message with no problem. However i have also seen segfaults from xterm too depending on what combination of path_exists and disk is used. See segfault.txt for journal entry.
EDIT: I found my problem with path_exists - i needed to add the path attribute to the module. Still it would be good if it failed in a cleaner way :)