[news.software.b] trn: mthreads and 'interrupt 11'

jkimball@SRC.Honeywell.COM (John Kimball) (11/20/90)

I'm having a problem with mthreads, after re-installing it.  mthreads
always dies wtih "signal 11".

Situation: trn was installed here originally by an admin in another group.
I (and some others) got hooked, but I didn't have/make the time to install
it properly as part of our standard news setup.  Time passes.  In
mid-October, I upgraded us from Bnews to Cnews (and to the latest NNTP).  I
did some directory re-organization, so I decided to rebuild trn
simultaneously.  I grabbed the distribution from caesar.cs.montana.edu,
built it with our new directory setup, and tried to run mthreads. mthreads
dies with "signal 11, segmentation fault".  (One other difference --
previously mthreads was running as root, I've been running it as news.)  I
tried running it under gdb to get a feel for the problem (information
below), but nothing obvious popped out.

Is this a familiar problem?  Any suggestions?  (I'm hoping that this is a
known situation, otherwise it's "Read the source, Luke", and it'll be a
while before I can make time for that, sigh . . .)

Thanks!

:::::::
mt.log:
:::::::
Oct 29 15:57 mthreads daemon started for 'all'
Oct 29 15:57 ** interrupt 11 **
Oct 29 16:08 mthreads daemon started for 'comp'
Oct 29 16:09 ** interrupt 11 **
Nov  4 15:34 mthreads single pass for 'all'
Nov  4 15:34 ** interrupt 11 **
Nov  9 12:20 mthreads single pass for 'all'
Nov  9 12:29 mthreads single pass for 'all'
Nov  9 12:37 mthreads single pass for 'all'
Nov  9 12:39 mthreads single pass for 'all'
:::::::::::::::::
running under gdb
:::::::::::::::::
(gdb) run -v
Starting program: /news/trn/mthreads -v

Program received signal 11, Segmentation fault
Reading in symbols for mt-read.c...done.
0x40b0 in read_roots () (mt-read.c line 221)
(gdb) print last_root
$1 = (struct Root *) 0x25f40
(gdb) print root
$2 = (struct Root *) 0x320c8
(gdb) print *last_root
$3 = {link = 0x26c64, articles = 0x26c7c, subjects = 0x26c94, root_num = 158892, thread_cnt = 2, subject_cnt = 27844, seq = 2}
(gdb) print *root
$4 = {link = 0x0, articles = 0x0, subjects = 0x0, root_num = 131073, thread_cnt = 0, subject_cnt = 0, seq = 1}
(gdb) print last_root->link
$5 = (struct Root *) 0x26c64
(gdb) print *last_root->link
$6 = {link = 0x26c7c, articles = 0x26c74, subjects = 0x2, root_num = 8, thread_cnt = 4096, subject_cnt = 0, seq = 0}
(gdb) 
::::::::::::::::::
mt-read.c line 221
::::::::::::::::::
	    last_subject = subject;
	}
	last_subject->link = Null(SUBJECT*);
-->	last_root->link = root;       <------
	last_root = root;
    }
    ret = 1;


						John Kimball

domain: jkimball@src.honeywell.com        Honeywell Systems and Research Center
        postmaster@src.honeywell.com      Computer Sciences/Software Technology
uucp:   <any-smart-host>!srcsip!jkimball  3660 Technology Drive, MN65-2100
voice:  +1 612/782-7343                   Minneapolis, MN  55418-1006
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disclaimer:  The only opinion Honeywell authorizes me to have is:
                          "Thermostats are Good"

jkimball@SRC.Honeywell.COM (John Kimball) (12/10/90)

In article <1990Nov19.175517.26757@src.honeywell.com> jkimball@SRC.Honeywell.COM (John Kimball) writes:
>
>I'm having a problem with mthreads, after re-installing it.  mthreads
>always dies wtih "signal 11".

Thanks to randy@chinet.chi.il.us (Randy Suess) and  Michael E. Dobson
<rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> for their suggestions.  There were
old .thread files lying about, owned by root.  Changing their ownership to
news was insufficient;  I needed to rm them, then mthreads was happy.  (I
didn't suspect that permissions could cause a segment violation problem.)

						John Kimball

domain: jkimball@src.honeywell.com        Honeywell Systems and Research Center
        postmaster@src.honeywell.com      Computer Sciences/Software Technology
uucp:   <any-smart-host>!srcsip!jkimball  3660 Technology Drive, MN65-2100
voice:  +1 612/782-7343                   Minneapolis, MN  55418-1006
fax:    +1 612/782-7438                   
disclaimer:  The only opinion Honeywell authorizes me to have is:
                          "Thermostats are Good"

spike@world.std.com (Joe Ilacqua) (12/14/90)

In article <1990Dec10.150638.16632@src.honeywell.com> jkimball@SRC.Honeywell.COM (John Kimball) writes:

<Thanks to randy@chinet.chi.il.us (Randy Suess) and  Michael E. Dobson
><rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> for their suggestions.  There were
<old .thread files lying about, owned by root.  Changing their ownership to
>news was insufficient;  I needed to rm them, then mthreads was happy.  (I
<didn't suspect that permissions could cause a segment violation problem.)

	The same thing just happen to me and it overflowed the disk
with 24 MB of:

Dec 13 10:34 ** interrupt 11 **

	This is a excellent answer to "Why run NN when there is TRN?".
'Cause 'nnmaster' has yet to f*ck me over where as 'mthreads' does it
all the time.

->Spike (In a ranting mood)
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