Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 22:49:03 GMT From: James Raynard <fcurrent@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: current@freebsd.org Cc: toor@dyson.iquest.net Subject: Re: Possible problem with new VM code? Message-ID: <199605222249.WAA11686@jraynard.demon.co.uk>
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No core dumps here, (un?)fortunately, but I do get strange behaviour if I try to start up Emacs after connecting up to my ISP. This has only started since I started running with the new VM code. A typical session goes like this:- 1. Dial into ISP using kernel PPP (from a root xterm). 2. As soon as the connection is made, the ISP sets up several SMTP channels to my machine (is that the correct term?). This typically causes 6-8 copies of sendmail to run simultaneously, accompanied by a good deal of forking. 3. My dial script also kicks off slurp. This is a passive NNTP client which requests and downloads news articles simultaneously. 4. I also usually FTP the latest CTM files for cvs-current. 5. When slurp has finished, I run 'rnews -U' to unbatch the articles it has collected. 6. When all my mail has arrived, I close the PPP connection and switch to another virtual window (this is under fvwm). 7. I then do 'telnet localhost', log in as one of my pseudo-users and do 'emacs &'. At this point, strange things can happen. Occasionally emacs will appear to start, but then print out a bogus error message and refuse to do anything. Sometimes it doesn't start, but spews out a load of byte code on the xterm, or an infinite stream of error messages. Once, nothing at all appeared to happen! (And sometimes it works normally). According to top, I always have over 20MB of swap available when this happens and about 9 or 10M of RAM, and everything else appears to be working normally. I don't usually have many applications running - just a few xterms open. However, emacs is using a massive amount of CPU time, and I have to kill it from another xterm. Once I've killed it, it'll start again with no problems. This may possibly be an emacs problem (it's the -release port, compiled under -release; I'll try re-compiling it), or it may be because I'm slightly low on swap (I have 24MB RAM and 64MB swap). But I thought it might be worth mentioning. -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland jraynard@dial.pipex.com james@jraynard.demon.co.uk
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