Re: [Evolution] Stalled evolution-mail process

[Frederic Crozat <fcrozat mandrakesoft com>]

On 10 Aug 2001 23:03:21 +1000, David Luyer wrote:
> On 10 Aug 2001 14:40:32 +0200, Frederic Crozat wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > since Evolution 0.11 (and even with 0.12), I get a lot of freeze in
> > Evolution, when accessing Inbox or downloading new messages..
> >
> > I'm running Evolution without file locking (--enable-file-locking=no)
> > and my evolution directory is on an NFS directory (NFS v3 server and
> > client).. 
> >
> > Result of lock is one evolution-mail process in 'D' state, without any
> > way to kill it (kill -9 doesn't work) and I have to reboot my computer
> > :((
>
> A 'D' state could quite easily be the kernel's fault.  Does 'dmesg' have
> anything interesting in it?

Nothing :(((

> > I've also discovered there is a lot of .nfs* files in
> > ~/evolution/local/Inbox directory so I'm wondering if there is some lock
> > which are not removed correctly..
>
> .nfs* files.  Fun.
>
> The story behind .nfs* files... when you unlink a file in Unix, it is
> still accessible as long as something holds it open.  So when you
> unlink a file (either via NFS or locally), but something via NFS is
> holding it open, the file is really renamed to some .nfs* name.  When
> the last NFS client holding the file open closes it, it can be deleted.
> But if the state is somehow lost then the file deletion may be 
> forgotten.
>
> Remember the NFS server may reboot while another machine holds the
> file open.  If it wasn't for this silly renaming trick, on rebooting
> the NFS server would have wiped the file as no active processes known
> to it were holding it open (inode link count is zero but not marked
> deleted, or however that error is reported these days).
>
> NFS is evil.  The only way Sun convinced the world it was sane was by
> having RFS to make NFS look good.
>
> Again, .nfs* files are nothing to do with Evolution either.

Well, I'm not so sure, since after each "Receive new messages", a new
.nfs file appears (probably generated by deleting movemail files) and
appears as used (deleted) by evolution-mail (seen in lsof).. And I'm the
only one accessing this file.. I'm wondering if there is several threads
trying to access the same file..

-- 
Frédéric Crozat
MandrakeSoft