rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (08/01/85)
Before I describe this problem, know ye that I run a recent (02/21/85) version of David Korn's ksh. We have been having a problem where 'ps' stops in the middle of printing out its process entries. It always stops after a full entry has been output (makes sense, since terminal output is line-buffered); the shell (ksh) then merrily eats (as in discards) all input until the user hits a return, at which point the ps finishes printing and the shell prompt is given as usual. Some clues: a) There are only four of us that I know of who are heavy users of 'ps', and three of us have seen the problem. The fourth is the only one who doesn't use the '-f' option; he always does either 'ps' alone or 'ps -al'. The rest of us use '-f' alone or in concert with '-e' or '-a'. b) The last process given by ps before it halts is (seemingly) random. c) The problem seems to occur MUCH more frequently when the user is running shl (shell layers); this is what tends to make me suspect the shell rather than 'ps' itself. d) Most of the time (maybe always; I can't duplicate it at will to find out), the COMMAND name of the process printed \after/ the user has hit a return is null (i.e., nothing in the COMMAND field). That process seems to be as random as the process before ps halts; except that I can't remember a time when this process first printed after the return is entered was NOT owned by init (ppid=1). Thanks so much for any (non-null) pointers to an answer to this mystery, -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj