Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Elliott Slaughter]

(If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
me know.)

Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
after having completely removed .emacs.d.

I am using Emacs 24.4 from http://emacsformacosx.com/ , but notably, this
bug has been reported multiple times by users of Homebrew (who either
compile from source or download a binary from Homebrew's own servers):
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/36737
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/25003

I have attached the start of a log from Mac OS X's built-in crash reporter.
I can provide the rest of the report as well, if that would be helpful. (It
contains various stack traces sampled from the unresponsive process.)

Note that while the trace below says that I've installed Emacs from
homebrew, this is the cask version, which is just a proxy for the
emacsformacosx.com version, which is not the same as the Homebrew proper
version (which was the focus of the bug reports above), which is compiled
from source.

Thanks in advance!

===========

Date/Time:       2015-02-15 11:08:40 -0800
OS Version:      10.10.2 (Build 14C109)
Architecture:    x86_64
Report Version:  21

Command:         Emacs-x86_64-10_9
Path:
/opt/homebrew-cask/*/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_9
Version:         ??? (???)
Parent:          launchd [1]
PID:             39366

Event:           hang
Duration:        4.00s (process was unresponsive for 176 seconds before
sampling)
Steps:           41 (100ms sampling interval)

Hardware model:  MacBookPro8,2
Active cpus:     8

Fan speed:       4362 rpm

[... file continues for about 1 MB of text ...]

-- 
Elliott Slaughter

"Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Guido Van Hoecke]

Problem happens frequently on my Mac, using 'GNU Emacs 24.4.1
(x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0, NS apple-appkit-1265.21)
 of 2014-10-21 on builder10-9.porkrind.org' (also got it at
http://emacsformacosx.com/)

Utterly frustrated, I created a startup automator app called
killAndRestartTheGodOfEditors.app which runs following script:

sleep 60
pids=`/bin/ps -axo pid,command | grep [E]macs | awk '{ print $1 }' | tr
'\n' ' '`
if [ "no$pids" != "no" ]; then
    kill -KILL $pids
fi
/usr/bin/emacsApp &

So it basically waits a minute, kills emacs and starts it anew. This one
never hangs, go figure.

Note that /usr/bin/emacsApp just contains 'open -a Emacs.app'
I do not remember why I used (needed?) this intermediate step, but it is my
current setup.

It does not fix the problem, but by the time I've got the paper and my
first coffee, there's a responsive copy of Emacs...


Maybe it does help others to deal with the frustration of this problem.

Guido



On 15 February 2015 at 20:28, Elliott Slaughter <elliottslaughter@gmail.com>
wrote:

> (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
> me know.)
>
> Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> after having completely removed .emacs.d.
>
> I am using Emacs 24.4 from http://emacsformacosx.com/ , but notably, this
> bug has been reported multiple times by users of Homebrew (who either
> compile from source or download a binary from Homebrew's own servers):
> https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/36737
> https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/25003
>
> I have attached the start of a log from Mac OS X's built-in crash reporter.
> I can provide the rest of the report as well, if that would be helpful. (It
> contains various stack traces sampled from the unresponsive process.)
>
> Note that while the trace below says that I've installed Emacs from
> homebrew, this is the cask version, which is just a proxy for the
> emacsformacosx.com version, which is not the same as the Homebrew proper
> version (which was the focus of the bug reports above), which is compiled
> from source.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> ===========
>
> Date/Time:       2015-02-15 11:08:40 -0800
> OS Version:      10.10.2 (Build 14C109)
> Architecture:    x86_64
> Report Version:  21
>
> Command:         Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> Path:
> /opt/homebrew-cask/*/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> Version:         ??? (???)
> Parent:          launchd [1]
> PID:             39366
>
> Event:           hang
> Duration:        4.00s (process was unresponsive for 176 seconds before
> sampling)
> Steps:           41 (100ms sampling interval)
>
> Hardware model:  MacBookPro8,2
> Active cpus:     8
>
> Fan speed:       4362 rpm
>
> [... file continues for about 1 MB of text ...]
>
> --
> Elliott Slaughter
>
> "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
> predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay
>

RE: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Drew Adams]

> (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
> me know.)

Probably `M-x report-emacs-bug'.

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[kgthegreat]

> Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> after having completely removed .emacs.d.

I used to face this problem on MBP. Due to the following observations, I think this problem is related to memory consumption.

1. Never happens after a restart, if emacs is the first app to run.
2. Almost always happens if emacs is run when MBP is up for a long time with lot of other apps.
3. Killing most apps especially chrome and then starting emacs = success.

Since then, I have upgraded the RAM from 2 + 2 config to 8 + 2 and have never faced this issue so far.

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Elliott Slaughter]

Ok, I posted a bug here:

http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=19879

On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> > (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please
> let
> > me know.)
>
> Probably `M-x report-emacs-bug'.
>



-- 
Elliott Slaughter

"Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[imi.horvath]

On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 3:12:30 AM UTC+1, kgthegreat wrote:
> > Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> > but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> > starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> > the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> > after having completely removed .emacs.d.
> 
> I used to face this problem on MBP. Due to the following observations, I think this problem is related to memory consumption.
> 
> 1. Never happens after a restart, if emacs is the first app to run.
> 2. Almost always happens if emacs is run when MBP is up for a long time with lot of other apps.
> 3. Killing most apps especially chrome and then starting emacs = success.
> 
> Since then, I have upgraded the RAM from 2 + 2 config to 8 + 2 and have never faced this issue so far.

Yes, I agree. I've got a similar pattern here. When other apps and the caching of OS X uses up the physical memory (2+2 GB in my case) and I launch the Emacs.app, it happens most certainly.
I've got the feeling that it's a bug related to the interplay between the Cocoa Emacs.app startup code and the memory management in OS X...

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[enterprise]

I'm not exactly sure what is making Emacs crash, but I have noticed that running emacs from
the command line (/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_9) never fails and instantly starts Emacs.

Maybe it has something to do with the ruby startup script which is included in emacsformacosx and the way yosemite reports system version (gestalt something or other, which it does not do correctly btw as per console).

Until this is fixed I'm starting Emacs from cli.

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[bitti1975]

On Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 12:43:22 PM UTC-8, Elliott Slaughter wrote:
> (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
> me know.)
> 
> Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> after having completely removed .emacs.d.

I've the same problem. I use "GNU Emacs 24.4.51.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0, NS apple-appkit-1343.16) of 2015-01-02" under a MacBookPro5,4 and Yosemite 10.10.3 though. For me its reproducible on every startup (maybe because I load so many applications?) Is anyone working on a fix?

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[davidmortensen]

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:37:41 AM UTC-4, bitt...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 12:43:22 PM UTC-8, Elliott Slaughter wrote:
> > (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
> > me know.)
> > 
> > Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> > but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> > starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> > the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> > after having completely removed .emacs.d.
> 
> I've the same problem. I use "GNU Emacs 24.4.51.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0, NS apple-appkit-1343.16) of 2015-01-02" under a MacBookPro5,4 and Yosemite 10.10.3 though. For me its reproducible on every startup (maybe because I load so many applications?) Is anyone working on a fix?

I'm long had the same problem with a variety of different Emacs builds (various builds from from http://emacsformacosx.com as well as a couple of homebrew builds). It was not always this way, but I can't put my finger on the exact change that triggered this behavior. Currently running OS X 10.10.5 on an early 2013 13" MBP with 16 GB RAM. I would love to know the solution to this problem.

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Stefan Monnier]

> I'm long had the same problem with a variety of different Emacs builds
> (various builds from from http://emacsformacosx.com as well as a couple of
> homebrew builds). It was not always this way, but I can't put my finger on
> the exact change that triggered this behavior. Currently running OS
> X 10.10.5 on an early 2013 13" MBP with 16 GB RAM. I would love to know the
> solution to this problem.

AFAIK it's a race-condition that shows up only since some version of OSX
and which is fixed in Emacs's "master" branch.  I suggest you try
a snapshot build of that development code to confirm that it fixes it
for you.


        Stefan

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Guido Van Hoecke]

FWIW, here's my current situation:

I'm currently running GNU Emacs 25.0.50.1
(x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0, NS appkit-1265.21 Version 10.9.5 (Build
13F1112))
of 2015-10-24

Emacs does not hang any more, but the instance launched by OSX during
startup frequently crashes (about 70%).

The next instance, launched from the dock, seldom crashes (less than 10%).

This is far from perfect, but imho still better than the hang situation.

Guido


On 14 October 2015 at 04:50, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> > I'm long had the same problem with a variety of different Emacs builds
> > (various builds from from http://emacsformacosx.com as well as a couple
> of
> > homebrew builds). It was not always this way, but I can't put my finger
> on
> > the exact change that triggered this behavior. Currently running OS
> > X 10.10.5 on an early 2013 13" MBP with 16 GB RAM. I would love to know
> the
> > solution to this problem.
>
> AFAIK it's a race-condition that shows up only since some version of OSX
> and which is fixed in Emacs's "master" branch.  I suggest you try
> a snapshot build of that development code to confirm that it fixes it
> for you.
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>
>

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[enrique.manjavacas]

On Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 9:43:22 PM UTC+1, Elliott Slaughter wrote:
> (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please let
> me know.)
> 
> Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode on
> the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file and
> after having completely removed .emacs.d.
> 
> I am using Emacs 24.4 from http://emacsformacosx.com/ , but notably, this
> bug has been reported multiple times by users of Homebrew (who either
> compile from source or download a binary from Homebrew's own servers):
> https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/36737
> https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/25003
> 
> I have attached the start of a log from Mac OS X's built-in crash reporter.
> I can provide the rest of the report as well, if that would be helpful. (It
> contains various stack traces sampled from the unresponsive process.)
> 
> Note that while the trace below says that I've installed Emacs from
> homebrew, this is the cask version, which is just a proxy for the
> emacsformacosx.com version, which is not the same as the Homebrew proper
> version (which was the focus of the bug reports above), which is compiled
> from source.
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> ===========
> 
> Date/Time:       2015-02-15 11:08:40 -0800
> OS Version:      10.10.2 (Build 14C109)
> Architecture:    x86_64
> Report Version:  21
> 
> Command:         Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> Path:
> /opt/homebrew-cask/*/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> Version:         ??? (???)
> Parent:          launchd [1]
> PID:             39366
> 
> Event:           hang
> Duration:        4.00s (process was unresponsive for 176 seconds before
> sampling)
> Steps:           41 (100ms sampling interval)
> 
> Hardware model:  MacBookPro8,2
> Active cpus:     8
> 
> Fan speed:       4362 rpm
> 
> [... file continues for about 1 MB of text ...]
> 
> -- 
> Elliott Slaughter
> 
> "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
> predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Just for the record, I was having the same problem, but it seems to have gone away compiling the 
patched version in this commit:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/commit/?h=emacs-25&id=0392e241b844487261d4dfcccc9a442793e0a868

This was also meant as a solution for the bug report posted also in this conversation by Elliott Slaughter:
http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=19879

notice that the mentioned patch is for Emacs25

best

Re: Hang on startup on OS X (GUI only)

[Guido Van Hoecke]

Hi,

Currently using (since November 23, 2015) nightly build
GNU Emacs 25.1.50.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0, NS appkit-1265.21 Version
10.9.5 (Build 13F1134))
 of 2015-11-23
obtained from http://emacsformacosx.com/

It never did hang nor crash on me (y)

Kudos to all developers :)

Guido

On 20 February 2016 at 13:45, <enrique.manjavacas@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 9:43:22 PM UTC+1, Elliott Slaughter wrote:
> > (If there is a better place to direct this (e.g. a bug tracker) please
> let
> > me know.)
> >
> > Emacs often hangs on startup on Mac OS X. The hangs are non-deterministic
> > but frequent (25-50% of runs), consume 100% of CPU, and only happen when
> > starting Emacs.app with the GUI enabled, never when running in text mode
> on
> > the command-line. I have reproduced the hangs with an empty .emacs file
> and
> > after having completely removed .emacs.d.
> >
> > I am using Emacs 24.4 from http://emacsformacosx.com/ , but notably,
> this
> > bug has been reported multiple times by users of Homebrew (who either
> > compile from source or download a binary from Homebrew's own servers):
> > https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/36737
> > https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/25003
> >
> > I have attached the start of a log from Mac OS X's built-in crash
> reporter.
> > I can provide the rest of the report as well, if that would be helpful.
> (It
> > contains various stack traces sampled from the unresponsive process.)
> >
> > Note that while the trace below says that I've installed Emacs from
> > homebrew, this is the cask version, which is just a proxy for the
> > emacsformacosx.com version, which is not the same as the Homebrew proper
> > version (which was the focus of the bug reports above), which is compiled
> > from source.
> >
> > Thanks in advance!
> >
> > ===========
> >
> > Date/Time:       2015-02-15 11:08:40 -0800
> > OS Version:      10.10.2 (Build 14C109)
> > Architecture:    x86_64
> > Report Version:  21
> >
> > Command:         Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> > Path:
> > /opt/homebrew-cask/*/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_9
> > Version:         ??? (???)
> > Parent:          launchd [1]
> > PID:             39366
> >
> > Event:           hang
> > Duration:        4.00s (process was unresponsive for 176 seconds before
> > sampling)
> > Steps:           41 (100ms sampling interval)
> >
> > Hardware model:  MacBookPro8,2
> > Active cpus:     8
> >
> > Fan speed:       4362 rpm
> >
> > [... file continues for about 1 MB of text ...]
> >
> > --
> > Elliott Slaughter
> >
> > "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to
> > predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay
>
> Just for the record, I was having the same problem, but it seems to have
> gone away compiling the
> patched version in this commit:
>
>
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/commit/?h=emacs-25&id=0392e241b844487261d4dfcccc9a442793e0a868
>
> This was also meant as a solution for the bug report posted also in this
> conversation by Elliott Slaughter:
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=19879
>
> notice that the mentioned patch is for Emacs25
>
> best
>