Ecasound git freezes

[Julien Claassen]

Hello Kai!
   I just pulled ecasound two days ago and it freezed my computer. I reverted
back to 2.6.0 release. Unfortunitely Ican't tell you what happened, because
the system was totally locked. So no braille-display movement. I just started
up with jack, something like;
ecasound -c -i in.wav -o jack_alsa
   Started the engine and off the system went to have the long big tea time in
heaven. At least this session of my trusted Linux. Well everyone deserves a
break once in a while. Just thought I'd let you know, unqualified as the info
is. Sorry"!
   Sincerely
         Julien

--------
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[Kai Vehmanen]

Hi,

On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, Julien Claassen wrote:

>   I just pulled ecasound two days ago and it freezed my computer. I reverted
> back to 2.6.0 release. Unfortunitely Ican't tell you what happened, because
> the system was totally locked. So no braille-display movement. I just started
> up with jack, something like;
> ecasound -c -i in.wav -o jack_alsa

thanks for reporting this. The current git has a few changes to core
engine that could in theory trigger lockups with real-time scheduling.
Especially the new OSC code needed some "infrastructure updates" that
could in theory affect other use-cases as well. I've also started using a
few new kernel/system interfaces (e.g. recursive pthread mutexes) that can
expose ecasound to bug/features in the implementation of these interfaces.
But all in all the changes are fairly conservative still.

Hmm, but you had a lockup and that's indeed worrying. In any case a lot of
testing is still needed before the next release.

A good way to debug this (and always a good practise when running
development code with real-time privileges), is to always run das_watchdog
(or similar app) on the background:

http://www.notam02.no/arkiv/src/
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-announce/2007-January/000909.html

It will downgrade any runaways processes back to SCHED_OTHER, and send a
note (via X popup _and_ entry to syslog). Most distros have in readily
available in their package repository.

By running the watchdog, you can more safely test development code, plus
as another big benefit, you get a clear note if the lockup happens due to
RT process busylooping. Hardware/driver problems are always another
possibility and this allows to filter at least some of those away
(although not 100% sure, as some driver issues also show up as busylooping
in user-space apps).

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[Julien Claassen]

Thanks, Kai!
   This long explanation was certainly helpful in specific points and besides
that interesting. I'll get the watchdog and see if I can run it properly. :-)
   Kindest regards
          Julien

--------
Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)

======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ========
http://ltsb.sourceforge.net
the Linux TextBased Studio guide
======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: =======
http://www.juliencoder.de

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[Kai Vehmanen]

Hi,

On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, Julien Claassen wrote:

>   I just pulled ecasound two days ago and it freezed my computer. I reverted
> back to 2.6.0 release. Unfortunitely Ican't tell you what happened, because
> the system was totally locked. So no braille-display movement. I just started
> up with jack, something like;

I believe I finally found the cause for this. A timeout calculation, used
in the engine command-queue implementation, had bugs and this caused
arbitrary delays to engine communication. This is now fixed in git and the
snapshot tarball I just sent a mail about.

I've also been stresstesting the snapshot build on my machines (with
JACK and rt-scheduling) and no problems encountered so far. So seems good.

Feedback is welcome!

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