Subject: Defunct processes?

From: "Paul Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 01 Oct 2002 10:58:56 -0400

I'm seeing a very bizarre behavior on my Debian GNU/Linux box (3.0).
I'm using the official packaged version of fvwm from unstable
(2.4.10-2).  I had this same problem with the fvwm from testing (2.4.8)
so I upgraded, but upgrading didn't help.

I'm sure that this has not always behaved this way, but I suppose I
might not have noticed it for a while; I don't often look at my complete
process list.  I haven't modified my .fvwmrc or anything in months.

The issue is that any process I start either from fvwm directly or from
FvwmButtons will go <defunct> after I exit it.  It stays defunct
forever, with a parent of the fvwm process, until I restart fvwm.

For example:

  # ps -aef | grep defunct
  psmith   26363 26244  0 10:22 ?        00:00:00 [FvwmButtons <defunct>]
  psmith   26368 26244  0 10:22 ?        00:00:00 [rterm <defunct>]
  psmith   26572 26244  0 10:32 ?        00:00:00 [rxvt <defunct>]
  psmith   26713 26244  0 10:37 ?        00:00:00 [rterm <defunct>]
  psmith   26718 26244  0 10:37 ?        00:00:00 [rterm <defunct>]
  psmith   26765 26244  0 10:44 ?        00:00:00 [rterm <defunct>]

  # ps -aef | grep 26244
  psmith   26244     1  0 10:22 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/fvwm -d :0.0 -s -clientId 11c020967f000098873609811110258690033 -restore /home/psmith/.fvwm/.fs-restart-lemming:0.0
    ...

The FvwmButtons above is because I killed the old one and restarted the
module, to see if changing my FvwmButtons commands like "Exec rxvt ..."
to "Exec exec rxvt ..." would help but it didn't.

I don't get it: is there some kind of known issue with fvwm where it's
not waiting for children?  Or, maybe this is an issue with libc in
Debian or something like that?

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]> HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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---

From: "Paul Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 03 Oct 2002 14:14:27 -0400

%% "Smith, Paul [BL60:430:EXCH]"<[email-masked]> writes:

  sp> The issue is that any process I start either from fvwm directly or
  sp> from FvwmButtons will go <defunct> after I exit it.  It stays
  sp> defunct forever, with a parent of the fvwm process, until I
  sp> restart fvwm.

No one has any idea what might be going on here?

---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 14:23:24 -0400

> No one has any idea what might be going on here?

Well, I don't see it, but then I'm not using debian 3.0 either.
I do ps's often enough that I'm pretty sure I would have noticed.

Have you set ExecUseShell or $SHELL?

-- 
Dan Espen                           E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: "Paul Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 03 Oct 2002 17:38:29 -0400

%% Dan Espen <[email-masked]> writes:

  de> Have you set ExecUseShell or $SHELL?

I set ExecUseShell to /bin/sh.

---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 17:55:23 -0400

> I set ExecUseShell to /bin/sh.

Well, no joy.

Mandrake 8.1.
I set ExecUseShell that way, restarted Fvwm, created some rxvts,
exited from them, then looked for defunct processes.

I tried:

exec rxvt
exec exec rxvt
exec rxvt &
exec exec rxvt &

then

ps -aef | grep defunct

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:08:13 +0200

> Debian or something like that?

There was a patch to the sigchild handling a while ago, but I
can't remember what it did.  Have to search the mailing list
archive and ChangeLog.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

 --
Dominik Vogt, mail: [email-masked], phone: 0721/91374-382
Schlund + Partner AG, Erbprinzenstr. 4-12, D-76133 Karlsruhe

---

From: "Paul Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Oct 2002 13:01:09 -0400

Hm.  I upgraded to the latest Debian testing stuff (including a new
libc) and now the problem has disappeared.

Oh well :).