Subject: threading bug in mail-notification?
To: None <pkgsrc-users@netbsd.org>
From: Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 04/20/2007 09:05:26
I've been using gnome mail notification applet mail/mail-notification
under NetBSD for a while, and it works on uniprocessors under netbsd-4
and used to work on current under MP (T60, Core Duo).  I monitor 2
mailboxes, both IMAP/SSL.

On the T60 (4.99.17), it hits an assertion at startup:

assertion "md_c[1] == md_count[1]" failed: file
"/usr/home/gdt/NetBSD-current/src/crypto/dist/openssl/crypto/rand/md_rand.c",
line 312, function "ssleay_rand_add"

It seems this is about openssl operations being invoked on a single
context in more than one thread at once.

I started it repeatedly, and after about 5 or 6 tries, it started, and
my recollection is that once started it works.

My suspicion is that mail-notification is buggy and is violating the
openssl calling conventions, but that with M:N threads it was very
unlikely that two threads would run at once.   With the new threading
model and concurrency, I think this happens more often.

Any comments about whether this theory makes sense are appreciated.

-- 
    Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>