Bug exists in latest stable (0.12.4) but it's fixed in current master, I'll backport the commits.
** Changed in: qemu Status: New => In Progress -- QEMU 0.12.3 crashes on incomplete USB serial device parameter https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/573827 You received this bug notification because you are a member of qemu- devel-ml, which is subscribed to QEMU. Status in QEMU: In Progress Bug description: When calling qemu by "qemu -usbdevice serial" (i.e. with an incomplete specification of the USB serial device), qemu crashes with a segfault. Debugging the problem has revealed that usb_serial_init() in usb-serial.c does not handle the incomplete parameter. The attached patch fixes the issue.