From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 8 04:28:33 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FB5816A4CE for ; Fri, 8 Oct 2004 04:28:33 +0000 (GMT) Received: from bloodwood.hunterlink.net.au (smtp-local.hunterlink.net.au [203.12.144.17]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F2D6343D5A for ; Fri, 8 Oct 2004 04:28:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from boris@brooknet.com.au) Received: from ppp2AB7.dyn.pacific.net.au (ppp2AB7.dyn.pacific.net.au [61.8.42.183])i984PKuB011522; Fri, 8 Oct 2004 14:25:31 +1000 From: Sam Lawrance To: Benjamin Close In-Reply-To: <4165D5CD.6020005@cs.unisa.edu.au> References: <200410071835.51942.marc.ramirez@bluecirclesoft.com> <4165D5CD.6020005@cs.unisa.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 14:30:23 +1000 Message-Id: <1097209823.8451.25.camel@dirk.no.domain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.1FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: Marc Ramirez cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Noticable Delays Since Beta 3 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 04:28:33 -0000 On Fri, 2004-10-08 at 09:18 +0930, Benjamin Close wrote: > I believe the issue is with the scheduler or something related to it. > The effect seems to occur when a process > hasn't been used for a long time and then is suddenly switched from a > wait state to an active state. > One place I notice it is if I su then perform some function, leave the > process su'd say overnight then the next morning type exit on it. > The 'exit' takes a while to display then once it does, it takes 3-4 > seconds before the previous shell's prompt reappears. > The box is never in swap with it's stats being: > > Mem: 133M Active, 236M Inact, 92M Wired, 15M Cache, 60M Buf, 18M Free > Swap: 512M Total, 512M Free > > However, it has a number of constantly running processes (graphical > memory watches, xfishtanks, graphical load watches, etc) > > Once the process responds it runs fine until the next long delay. It > seems more responsive with BETA7 but no where near the same as before > the scheduler change. > It might be a symptom related to X, will test overnight in console. > > Cheers, > Benjamin > I have to "me too" this. I have only seen the problem with unused gettys and bashes on vtys and in xterm. I typically do have a reasonable amount of stuff paged out, but the delays I see aren't consistent with lots of paging in. The system can be idle with no disk activity and I can still see ~4 sec delays. I have tried to get a ddb trace on a frozen process with no luck so far - all I ever end up with is 'Thread xxx not found'. I initially assumed this might be because part of the process was paged out - I am unsure, though. Sam.