High CPU load

[David Reitter]

Recent Emacs 22 branch builds (Carbon) from CVS appear to occasionally  
cause high CPU loads (100-140% on my dual core). This has been  
reported by various users and I'm seeing it myself as well.

Consistently, this happens when AUCTeX (latex-mode) is used (and  
perhaps other things like RefTeX and ispell).
This has been occurring since the switch to Leopard (10.5).

Thread Viewer shows 8 active threads in the Emacs process, two of them  
working.

The stack trace of the first one shows select$DARWIN_EXTSN (right  
after _pthread_start).
The second one is in mach_msg_trap, CFRunLoopRunSpecific, CFLoopRun,  
TSystemNotificationTask::SystemNotificationTaskProc(void*),  
PrivateMPEntryPoint.


More details from within the running Emacs (which runs nicely while  
the load problem occurs):

(process-list) returns (#<process> ispell)

flyspell-mode is not enabled, but aspell (via 'flyspell-buffer') was  
used at some point.

(process-sentinel (car (process-list)))  returns nil
(process-status (car (process-list))) returns `run'
(kill-process (car (process-list))) works as intended. CPU load  
continues.

killed latex buffer. CPU load continues.

(get-internal-run-time) reflects the high CPU load.

timer-list is nil.
timer-idle-qlist is:

([t 0 0 125000 t show-paren-function nil t]
 [nil 0 0 500000 0.5 blink-cursor-start nil t]
 [nil 0 0 500000 t jit-lock-context-fontify nil t]
 [nil 0 1 199999 t reftex-view-crossref-when-idle nil t]
 [nil 0 5 0 t mac-cleanup-expired-apple-events nil t])

`cancel-function-timers' for any of these doesn't help the situation  
(I tried all except blink-cursor-start).
timer-event-last is correct.


I have no guarantees that this would also occur when started with -Q -  
since the problem only occurs sporadically, I can't test that as  
easily. But I can't see how Lisp-level changes or the patches we use  
could cause this. Can I investigate this further?


In GNU Emacs 22.1.50.1 (i386-apple-darwin8.11.1, Carbon Version 1.6.0)
 of 2007-11-26 on plume.sr.unh.edu - Aquamacs Distribution 1.2
Windowing system distributor `Apple Inc.', version 10.5.1
configured using `configure  '--without-x' '--prefix=/usr/local''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  locale-coding-system: iso-8859-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Text

Minor modes in effect:
  smart-frame-positioning-mode: t
  aquamacs-styles-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  recentf-mode: t
  encoded-kbd-mode: t
  osx-key-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  delete-selection-mode: t
  pc-selection-mode: t
  cua-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mac-input-method-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: 0
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
  utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<menu-bar> <help-menu> <send-emacs-bug-report> 1 0
0 <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> H
i g h SPC C P U SPC l o a d SPC o n SPC C a r b n SPC
<backspace> <backspace> o n SPC p o r t SPC w i t h
SPC <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace>
<backspace> <backspace> SPC ( w i t h SPC A U C T e
X ) <return> <switch-frame> <menu-bar> <help-menu>
<report-emacs-bug>

Recent messages:
Defining fontset: lucida_typewriter14
Loading /Users/dr/Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs/frame- 
positions.el (source)...done
Aquamacs is based on GNU Emacs 22, a part of the GNU/Linux system.
It is Free Software: you can improve and redistribute it under the GNU  
General Public License, version 3
or later. Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. (C) 2007  
D. Reitter. No Warranty.
Aquamacs is based on GNU Emacs 22, a part of the GNU/Linux system.
It is Free Software: you can improve and redistribute it under the GNU  
General Public License, version
3 or later. Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. (C) 2007  
D. Reitter. No Warranty.
Loading emacsbug...done
call-interactively: Text is read-only