Ubuntu
bug-buddy package

BugBuddy should not run if the system is swapping

Bug #70637 reported by Steve Alexander
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Bug Buddy
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
bug-buddy (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Wishlist
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

My edgy machine was swapping, a lot, because I was running a memory-hungry python script.

Working in a terminal, I accidentally hit F1 as I was trying to kill the script on a very slow-responding system. The system tried to run the gnome help application. It didn't run properly, maybe because of the lack of memory. But, the issue was made worse because bug-buddy insisted on hooking gdb into the process thus keeping both it and bug-buddy around.

So, I'd like to suggest that there is no point in bug-buddy running when an application has failed due to lack of memory, and that bug-buddy should take a look to see if the system is swapping a lot before deciding if it should actually run.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for your bug. What signal has been sent to the process? Do you suggest to not catch segfaults when the system load is too high?

Changed in bug-buddy:
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Steve Alexander (stevea) wrote :

I'm not really aware of how bug-buddy works. I don't know what signal was sent to the application process, all I know is that the application crashed while the system was swapping a lot. What signal does a program receive when it can't allocate memory? Or does that depend what language it is written in, and whether the author has been careful to check the results of malloc?

In my imagination, bug-buddy would ask the OS whether the system is swapping. Then, if the system is swapping, it would not attach gdb to the application process, and instead let the process swiftly die.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Marking as wishlist

Changed in bug-buddy:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: Needs Info → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

ubuntu doesn't use bug-buddy by default and is not going to work on such change

Changed in bug-buddy:
status: Confirmed → Invalid
status: New → Invalid
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