Re: bug#13546: 24.2.92; Error(s) when sending emails

[Sebastien Vauban]

Eli,

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: "Sebastien Vauban" <wxhgmqzgwmuf@spammotel.com>
>> Cc: Sebastien Vauban <wxhgmqzgwmuf@spammotel.com>,  13546@debbugs.gnu.org
>> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:15:01 +0100
>> 
>> - What about that magical `C-v' character?  Any idea?
>
> No idea.  It doesn't seem to be related to the problem, though.
>
>> - Now that you know what the problem was, can you confirm that Emacs 23 did
>>   behave well for my use case?  Maybe Emacs 24.0 as well?
>
> Emacs 23 concealed the problem: it would let you continue invoking
> subprocesses, but with every Locate subprocesses launched by Helm,
> Emacs would leak 2 handles.  After some time (longer than the 2-3
> hours you got with 24.2.9x), too many handles would have been lost,
> and Emacs would become unusable.  Moreover, since the OS cannot reuse
> a process ID of a process which still has some handle open on it, the
> entire system would become unusable, because it could no longer launch
> processes.
>
> In v24.2.91, this handle leakage was plumbed, but doing so exhibited
> another problem (which was already fixed on the trunk, btw), which
> manifested itself in what you described.  Note that this problem only
> rears its ugly head whenever an async subprocess is launched and then
> killed without letting it exit in an orderly manner.  That is why no
> one else reported the problem: I guess there are no more Helm users on
> Windows who track the v24.3 pretests.
>
>> - Is the current problem only happening on Windows (or due to my shell
>>   setting)?
>
> It is specific to Windows, but is not related to any shell settings.
> It happens every time an async subprocess is killed by calling
> delete-process on it.
>
>> - Is it only with heavy process-creator users like me (by using Helm as my
>>   almost only way to switch between buffers and files)?
>
> See above: delete-process is the main trigger.  It prevents a slot
> from being released in the array which Emacs on Windows uses to manage
> subprocesses and network/serial connections.  When all the 32 slots
> are used up in this way, Emacs can no longer launch subprocesses or
> open network connections.
>
> The code I added looks for these "lost" slots and releases them, so
> that they can be reused.  On the trunk, the problem is avoided
> altogether, but that requires deeper changes in the related code, and
> I'd rather not make them at this late stage of the pretest.
>
>> - Can you confirm the GDB command had to be "p *cp" and not "b *cp"?
>
> Yes, of course.  Sorry.

Thanks for these interesting explanations.

Now, let's hope for the best! (and resolve Gnutls... ;-))

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban