Newbie Questions

[Chris Muller]

Hi Ross, a few things:

> The last visible line in _magmaTestConductor.image is
> remote performing startAddStrings: with arguments #(true) in client 1.
>
> Client 1 shows "ConnectionTimedOut: Data receive timed out"
> submit is executing
>  submitGuard critical:
>                                [ "ensure connected"
>                                self protocolEstablished ifFalse: [ self connect ].
>                                self primSubmit: aMaClientServerRequest ]
>
> deeper into the evaluation, it's waiting for data with a 4s timeout.

This particular method is called from several tests in the suite.
Only two pass a true argument, either #testForwardRecovery or
#verifyAddToNode, the rest pass false.  The former occurs fairly early
in the test-suite, the latter would occur near the end of the test
suite (at least 45 minutes in on a fast laptop).  I'm not sure which
happened, but it doesn't matter.  If you look at that method,
#startAddStrings:, you'll see that the code attempts to handle
ConnectionTimedOut (actually NetworkError) so it can gracefully exit
that loop.
  In the case you experienced the deadlock, the argument was set to
true, so we are expecting a NetworkError.  But there may still be an
timing issue within the test-suite, not Magma, that has to do with the
timing of network events, resulting in the deadlock.

The solution is to simply abandon the debugger in client1, the other
process waiting on the Mutex will immediately resume and the tests
will resume normally.

> This was using the 3.9 image distributed in Debian.

Now, another thing you need to be sure of; update your 3.9 image with
important fixes or you may experience a total image lock-up.

It's not a Magma issue, perhaps you remember the discussions on the
list about 18-months ago related to Semaphore / critical / Delays and
so forth that were locking up Seaside and other server-based images?
Well, Magma was also affected.

Andreas provided great fixes which I have rolled up into a new package
on SqueakMap:

Introducing Ma3.9FixPack.

Please load this package before kicking off the Magma test suite.

 - Chris