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Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:43:41 -0500
From: Paul McFerrin <pmcferrin AT columbus DOT rr DOT com>
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To: Dave Steenburgh <dave DOT steenburgh AT gmail DOT com>, Cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: Defunct processes with 1.5.25-15; seemingly reproducible
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A <defunct> process is not necesarily the real "problem".  All <defunct> 
process are processes that their parent has NOT done a wait(2) yet.  
Since these <defunct> processes have called exit(2), they must hang 
around until a wait(2) is completed so that the exit status can be 
returned to the parent.

    You need to understand more of the parent/child relationship before
    you can pass blame, if any.



Dave Steenburgh wrote:
> cgf wrote:
>   
>> Defunct processes are not necessarily indicative of a cygwin problem.
>> This could easily be a problem with gnuplot.
>>     
>
> Given the sum of my own limited knowledge of the problem at hand (in
> summary: every program involved is in my local cygwin directory), I
> figured it was best to ask here first.
>
> Dave Steenburgh wrote:
>   
>> $ ps
>>      PID    PPID    PGID     WINPID  TTY  UID    STIME COMMAND
>> ...
>>     4164    1288    7684       5504    6 1003 23:49:20
>>     5392    3224    5984       6100    5 1003 23:49:06 <defunct>
>>     1452    5240    5984       8104    5 1003 23:49:06 <defunct>
>>     5240    3224    5984       4532    5 1003 23:49:06 <defunct>
>> ...
>>
>>     
> ...
>   
>> The PIDs seem to be the same every time this happens.  Specifically, I
>> have seen 5240 and 1452 every time.  Whether that's significant, I
>> don't know.
>>     
>
> Now, this is interesting...  I killed those defunct processes with
> process explorer, and subsequently confirmed via ps, task manager, and
> process explorer that they were no longer running.  I began another
> session with gnuplot, and this time there are three:
>
> $ ps
> ...
>      5240    3224    5984       4532    5 1003 23:49:06 <defunct>
>      4164    1288    7684       5504    6 1003 23:49:20 <defunct>
>      5392    3224    5984       6100    5 1003 23:49:06 <defunct>
> ...
>
> For each of those, the entire row is identical to a row in my previous
> message.  Since I started the session around 14:00, and the last
> output file's modification timestamp is 17:21, I'd say the timestamps
> for those three processes are not reliable.  Is it possible that the
> original defunct processes were never truly killed?  If so, can they
> be killed without rebooting?
>
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