Instead of using the quest dialog, "/give" a stack of 4 jars. That solves the quest.

Ok, that worked, thanks.

Still seems odd though, as other quests where that was an issue at least told you so. I'd get a dialog "you have too many of this item, you must give it manually".  This one, the error is specifically "You have too few..." and tells you to come back when you have enough.

I was having this behaviour too, and totally counter intuitive, but... I set my adaptive distance in graphics detail up to 700 (was 300) and now its mostly smooth. Still a little jerky in the Hydlaa plaza, but everywhere else it seems fine.  Not sure why that would be, but something to check.

Well I've noticed a distinct lag as of 5.3, whenever I move it 'hiccups' every few seconds... the screen just freezes, the sound stops, and then everything resumes a few seconds later.  Didn't have that with 5.2.  Several of my guildies report the same symptoms.  Seems to be cross platform.

Also notice its REALLY bad when crossing from one map to another. After entering a new map I can barely move at all for probably 15-20 seconds.

Glad it helped.

I ended up removing all the ones that started with "libX", as looking at console output indicated some incompatabilities with mine.  No ill effects so far, and the jerky stuff is now only in specific spots.

I'd guess that if it runs ok on your system libx11, then you are probably better off using libs that are all compiled against the same x11 headers and glibc (but YMMV).

There are only 4 of the Planeshift libs that aren't already on my system, so I experimented with different combinations of the rest, but had some noticable differences in textures when I removed the libpng and libjpg, so in the end I only removed the X ones.  (And yes, I'm just renaming them, not actually deleting them.)

Tried removing .crystalspace, ps recreated it, but its empty.  Is that a clue?

Also saw that there is a new nvidia driver as of yesterday, so installed that, just to be sure.  Still same error.
Here's the full output when I run "planeshift" in console:

WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'
ERROR: Couldn't load plugin with class 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'!
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.xmlshader'
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.weaver'
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'
ERROR: Couldn't load plugin with class 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'!
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.xmlshader'
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.level.loader'
Checking for updates to the updater: Using mirror http://216.6.227.163/xordan/
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.level.loader'
WARNING: Can not load default shader vars, no iSyntaxService available
Opening GLX2D
Creating Context
ERROR: XOpenIM() failed
Failed to open the X-Window!
Error opening Graphics2D context.
Opening GLX2D
Creating Context
ERROR: XOpenIM() failed
Failed to open the X-Window!
Default shader /shader/std_lighting.xml not available
Default shader /shader/std_lighting_portal.xml not available
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.renderloop.step.generic.type'
Failed to load plugin crystalspace.renderloop.step.generic.type; pandemonium will ensue.
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.rendermanager.unshadowed'
No rendermanager set!
Mounting skin: /planeshift/art/pslaunch.zip
Texture Manager parsing /paws/launcher/imagelist.xml
Segmentation fault

So it starts with crystalspace warnings immediately.  Seems like crystalspace can't even configure itself.

Had 5.1.1 running beautifully and finally configured all the way I like it, then get told I'm out of date and need to upgrade.  Downloaded newest installer, run it, then try to start game and instant seg fault.  Relevant errors seem to be:
crystalspace.window.x:  XOpenIM() failed
crystalspace.canvas.glx2d:  Failed to open the X-Window!
crystalspace.graphics3d.opengl:  Error opening Graphics2D context.
crystalspace.window.x:  XOpenIM() failed
crystalspace.canvas.glx2d:  Failed to open the X-Window!

Have OpenGL and Nvidia driver, all working.  Nothing on system has changed since 5.1.1 which ran great a week ago.

YAY!   Downloaded & installed, and so far only crashed once, although that one is kind of puzzling...  does planeshift start the artsd server?   The output after the crash said it was in artsd, but I normally don't run artsd, I have KDE setup to use alsa instead.  And sound overall is choppy. 

BUT I'm in Hydlaa!  Feels like coming home after a long absence.  Now to get reacquainted with old friends and meet some of the new ones.

might have been http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=1749

Yes, that looks like it... 

Unfortunate, because it looks like the only workaround is build it myself, which I don't mind except there's no source here and I'm not doing another long drive and long download to get it (unless there's a src pack somewhere that's reasonably feasable on dial-up?).  But the current situation leads right back to my title... not playable. 

.04 anytime soon?