GNU bug report logs - #850
23.0.60; make autoloads reports memory exhaustion

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Message #5 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: Tim Van Holder <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: emacs-pretest-bug <at> gnu.org
Subject: 23.0.60; make autoloads reports memory exhaustion
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:15:31 +0200

CVS build of this morning; did a make maintainer-clean followed by a
make boostrap to ensure a clean slate.

My normal "rebuild" script updates the sources and then runs

test -f src/emacs && test -x src/emacs || make
make info
make -C lisp recompile updates
rm -f etc/DOC* src/emacs
make

But since this morning the make command for the lisp subdir fails during
autoloads processing:

Saving file /home/tim/gnu/src/emacs/lisp/loaddefs.el...
Memory exhausted--use C-x s then exit and restart Emacs
make: *** [autoloads] Error 255

loaddefs.el doesn't seem to get updated. It also prevented the other
commands for the 'updates' target from running, but I've added -k to the
make options to work around that.

In case it's relevant, I build outside the source tree.

Message #10 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
To: Tim Van Holder <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: 23.0.60; make autoloads reports memory exhaustion
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:20:27 -0400

> But since this morning the make command for the lisp subdir fails
> during autoloads processing:
>
> Saving file /home/tim/gnu/src/emacs/lisp/loaddefs.el...
> Memory exhausted--use C-x s then exit and restart Emacs
> make: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>
> loaddefs.el doesn't seem to get updated. It also prevented the other
> commands for the 'updates' target from running, but I've added -k to
> the make options to work around that.

I can't reproduce this.  Do you still see this problem with latest CVS?
If so, what's your platform?

Message #15 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: "Chong Yidong" <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
Cc: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: 23.0.60; make autoloads reports memory exhaustion
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 09:55:52 +0200

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 2:20 AM, Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com> wrote:
>> But since this morning the make command for the lisp subdir fails
>> during autoloads processing:
>>
>> Saving file /home/tim/gnu/src/emacs/lisp/loaddefs.el...
>> Memory exhausted--use C-x s then exit and restart Emacs
>> make: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>>
>> loaddefs.el doesn't seem to get updated. It also prevented the other
>> commands for the 'updates' target from running, but I've added -k to
>> the make options to work around that.
>
> I can't reproduce this.  Do you still see this problem with latest CVS?
> If so, what's your platform?

Yes, with an emacs built from CVS (not a full bootstrap) 20 minutes ago,
"make -C lisp autoloads" still reports the memory exhaustion during the
save operation.

A little debugging shows that the signal is raised from memory_full(), which is
called by lisp_malloc; it was asked to allocate 1.2MiB worth of non-lisp memory.
At the point of the memory_full() invocation, val is indeed 0 (and
this is the direct
return value of malloc, not because of further changes to val) - but
at this point
emacs only has 15MiB of memory allocated so there's no way it really ran out
of memory.

My system is a debian linux box, running a 2.4.27 kernel (which I can't upgrade
to 2.6 because the 2.6 kernel dropped support for its Dell RAID controller),
with glibc 2.3.6. Configured using only --with-x.

OK - it looks like this was an extreme edge case.
I just set aside my existing loaddefs.el (unfortunately as
loaddefs.el~, so it was
destroyed in the process) and reran make -C lisp autoloads. While this
took a lot
longer (all files as opposed to the 6 or so that had changed since the
last time),
this completed without error. So it looks like it was some sort of
very rare bug,
presumably in the system malloc.

So I guess you can close this one.

Message #22 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: "Chong Yidong" <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
Cc: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: 23.0.60; make autoloads reports memory exhaustion
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 11:00:02 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

reopen 850

Unfortunately, it is back, so it seems like it's not as much of an edge case as
I thought. If I remove loaddefs.el, make autoloads works fine; if it exists and
needs updating, it fails.
I'll attach the loaddefs.el I had the problem with this morning (in tarball to
preserve timestamp), in case this helps you reproduce it.

[loaddefs.tar.gz (application/x-gzip, attachment)]

Message #31 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: gdb trace
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:50:24 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Attached is the log of a gdb session (with a CVS HEAD build of this morning)
that shows a backtrace after bumping into the memory issue.

[emacs850-gdb.txt (text/plain, attachment)]

Message #36 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: looks like a compiler issue
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:30:01 +0200

Looks like this was a compiler issue - having updated gcc to 4.3.2
(selfcompiled)
instead of the stock debian gcc 4.1.1-21 I was using before, the issue
goes away.
So I guess this can be closed again.

Message #41 received at 850 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: It's back
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:03:38 +0200

And after this morning's build from CVS HEAD it's back - this is a
frigging heisenbug...

Message #46 received at 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: It's back
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:29:05 +0200

"Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com> writes:

> And after this morning's build from CVS HEAD it's back - this is a
> frigging heisenbug...

Has this bug gone away forever now, or are you still seeing it?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #49 received at 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Tim Van Holder <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 850 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: It's back
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:24:55 +0200

On 28 July 2011 02:29, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> wrote:
> "Tim Van Holder" <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> And after this morning's build from CVS HEAD it's back - this is a
>> frigging heisenbug...
>
> Has this bug gone away forever now, or are you still seeing it?

Looks like it's gone. Hadn't built emacs in a long time; did a bzr up
to get the latest sources, then ran make -C lisp autoloads, and it
completed just fine.

Message #54 received at 850-close <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Tim Van Holder <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 850-close <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: It's back
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:37:38 +0200

Tim Van Holder <tim.vanholder <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Looks like it's gone. Hadn't built emacs in a long time; did a bzr up
> to get the latest sources, then ran make -C lisp autoloads, and it
> completed just fine.

Ok; I'm closing the bug report, then.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

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