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Fwd: infocmp.exe opens in a new windows-cmd window and hangs


On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Larry Hall (Cygwin) wrote:
> On 12/22/2013 9:09 PM, Irfan Adilovic wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On my 64-bit Cygwin installation, when I start `infocmp.exe` from
>> within mintty, it opens up a new cmd-window (not mintty!), shows
>> options and immediately closes. However, the infocmp process hangs in
>> a way that defies killing -- it cannot be killed even from the windows
>> task manager (first attempt at killing has no effect, later attempts
>> return "Access is denied"). Same thing for its parent process, sh.exe.
>> So far, I haven't found a way of killing these two processes short of
>> restarting the system.
>>
>> A workaround is to either uninstall ncurses or to move away
>> infocmp.exe -- with luck, stuff will work (for example, `perl -de0`
>> hangs because of infocmp, but works flawlessly with infocmp moved
>> away).
>>
>> Now, has anyone else observed this, or am I the only one? I've tried
>> reinstalling ncurses without effect, any other suggestions?
>>
>> I'm running 64-bit Cygwin under Windows 8.
>
>
> No problem for me on Windows 7, 32-bit.  If you're still having trouble,
> please read and follow the problem reporting guidelines found at the link
> below with any follow-up mail to the list.  That will help others on the
> list do some basic evaluation of your issue.
>
>> Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html

I'm running cygwin 64-bit, version 1.7.27(0.271/5/3), under Windows 8
Professional. When I run infocmp.exe (without arguments) from the
ncurses package, from within a mintty terminal, it opens up a new
cmd.exe window, prints whatever it is supposed to print when called
without arguments and then exits, closing the cmd.exe window. Invoking
with '>/dev/null 2>/dev/null' behaves exactly the same as without.

I was able to capture the cmd.exe window (which is closed
instantaneously) with a screen recording software and then extract the
frame, see here: http://s21.postimg.org/jwz9s8dlz/infocmp_normal.jpg .
I have also observed a stacktrace in that cmd.exe window once, but
couldn't figure out what causes it (a different executable filename is
not the cause, and it happened only once out of about 6 times I
recorded the screen):
http://s18.postimg.org/a7pzrbuih/infocmp_stacktrace.jpg

Now, even after the cmd.exe window is closed, infocmp.exe remains
running in the mintty terminal and cannot be killed. After pressing
Ctrl-C, the following output is always shown after a variable amount
of time (in a couple of tests, I got values between 20 and 50
seconds):

irfan@irfy:/usr/bin$ ./infocmp.exe
      1 [sig] -bash 16792 get_proc_lock: Couldn't acquire
sync_proc_subproc for(5,1), last 7, Win32 error 0
    497 [sig] -bash 16792 proc_subproc: couldn't get proc lock. what 5, val 1

The first number on the second line of output corresponds to the
amount of time waited in 1/10ths of a second.

Looking at the task manager reveals an sh.exe parent and an
infocmp.exe child, neither of which can be killed: "Access is denied".
I have to reboot to get rid of them.

I stumbled across this problem by trying to run the perl debugger --
`perl -de0` -- which hangs as just described. Uninstalling the ncurses
package makes the perl debugger work -- as does moving away (renaming)
just the infocmp executable. Reinstalling the ncurses package does not
resolve the problem.

I've attached my cygcheck.out (removed a couple of env-vars -- they do
not influence PATH-like variables anyway). You will notice that
cygcheck says that infocmp.exe is missing -- that's because I had it
moved away (renamed it) for `perl -de0` to work at the time of running
cygcheck.

I don't think it should make a difference, but someone on
stackoverflow thought that mintty terminal options could cause the
problem -- I have changed some colors and fonts, changed mouse
behavior to mimic PuTTY, but I left the terminal type at 'xterm' and
answerback empty.

I have also tried to start the infocmp.exe directly from the common
cmd.exe shell -- it always ended up in a stack trace. (This could be
normal I guess)

-- Irfan

Attachment: cygcheck.out
Description: Binary data

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