[Threads-devel] showstopper bug for pthread backend

Subject: [Threads-devel] showstopper bug for pthread backend
From: Paul Pogonyshev (pogonyshev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-02-08 11:02:50

Hi,

Can you please look at bug in tickets 2330 and 3735 (both reference
the same bug)?  It's a showstopper as it can potentially lock down any
multithreaded application on pthread backend.  I verified that the bug
is reproducible with Boost 1.42.

Ticket 3735 has an attached program that demonstrates the bug.  (I
just disregarded all extra files and compiled the only .cpp file in
that archive and it worked).  Note that here (2 CPU cores) the program
freezes after 1000--4000 iterations, so the bug is extremelly
difficult to reproduce in real programs, but when it does happen,
result can be just full program lockdown and likely data loss.  On
machines with more cores the bug is probably reproduced more readily.

Ticket 2330 has a proposed patch, but it doesn't compile when applied
to Boost 1.42 and I don't understand it enough to try to upgrade.

References:
* https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/2330
* https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/3735
* http://groups.google.com/group/boost-list/browse_thread/thread/30e4efca95cc064c/6ea3c58c188f7421?lnk=raot

Paul