Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!venera.isi.edu!raveling
From: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
Subject: Re: Emacs/X11 hangs
Message-ID: <9634@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 89 23:25:47 GMT
References: <11766@polya.Stanford.EDU> <1573@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling)
Organization: USC Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 33

In article <11766@polya.Stanford.EDU>, seligman@polya.Stanford.EDU
(Scott Seligman) writes:
> (Piet van Oostrum) writes:
> >I don't know if this is an Emacs problem, an X11 problem or a HP/UX problem:
> >
> >I have GNU Emacs version 18.53 running on a HP9000/340 with HP/UX 6.5
on X11. 
> >Regularly (i.e. at least once per day) emacs hangs while it is busy with
> >something that is not interactive, e.g. executing a synchronous shell
> >command (M-x shell-command).
> 
> This sometimes happens to me, too.  (The magic numbers are
> 18.54, HP9000/350, HP-UX6.5, and X11.)

	That's exactly what's running on my workstation, except
	that it's been upgraded to a 370.  As either a 350 or 370
	I haven't seen such a problem.  (OK, once while hacking elisp
	code I generated an infinite loop, but that was my own fault.)

	It's likely that I'm not doing the same things though.
	I believe the original message also referred to using Gnews, 
	and a package such as Gnews would be a more likely candidate
	for the problem than emacs itself.  Something like a M-x
	shell-command might possibly be vulnerable to some race
	condition in waiting for the shell process it creates to
	terminate.  UNIX's architecture for process "management"
	invites that sort of thing -- in fact I have that problem
	in a different non-GNU program & haven't tracked it down yet.


----------------
Paul Raveling
Raveling@isi.edu