On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 10:16:12AM -0400, cdshaffer at acm.org wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am using the 3.6g VM and the latest 3.6 image under RedHat Linux 9.
> After a few days of use (and many "save and exit" cycles) the UI
> becomes very sluggish.  Focus updates are slow, response to buttons
> clicks and typing are slow.  This has happened to me four or five
> times now with the 3.6 series VM and image.  Each time I just filed
> out my code and started with a fresh image.  At first I thought that
> it was something I was loading (I have been using OSProcess and
> CommandShell alot).  Now I'm not too sure.  Anyway, some other things
> I've noticed:
> 
> 1) my machine doesn't report excessive CPU usage by Squeak
> (9 or 10% when squeak is idle)
> 
> 2) the sluggishness always _seems_ to follow a CommandShell command
> execution (like "ls") which didn't seem to end properly.  That is, I
> type "ls" in CommandShell and it lists the directory but the prompt
> never comes back.  I press return a few times and eventually get a
> prompt.

Sounds like OSProcess in not properly receiving or handling the "death
of child" signals from the programs being run by your CommandShell
window.

I'm sorry I won't have much time to look at this until this weekend,
but here are a couple of quick workarounds to get things unstuck:

- Find the UnixOSProcessPlugin.so in your installation, and rename
  it so that it cannot be run by the VM.

- Get back into Squeak, and open a ProcessBrowser. Terminate any processes
  that look suspicious. From the symptoms you are described, I'll bet
  you have a lot of them.

- Save and exit. The image should be OK now, and you can rename
  UnixOSProcessPlugin.so back so it can be used again.

Dave