apport-retrace crashed with OSError in _execute_child(): [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

[Matt Rae]

$ apport-retrace -g -R -S system _usr_sbin_apt-cacher-ng.116.crash
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/apport-retrace", line 296, in <module>
    report.add_package_info()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 197, in add_package_info
    package = apport.fileutils.find_file_package(self['ExecutablePath'])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/fileutils.py", line 81, in find_file_package
    return packaging.get_file_package(file)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/packaging_impl.py", line 232, in get_file_package
    stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1133, in _execute_child
    self.pid = os.fork()
OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: apport-retrace 1.23-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-17.30-generic 3.0.22
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportLog:
 ERROR: apport (pid 8660) Fri Apr 13 11:17:55 2012: called for pid 8659, signal 6
 ERROR: apport (pid 8660) Fri Apr 13 11:17:55 2012: executable: /home/mrae/a.out (command line "./a.out")
 ERROR: apport (pid 8660) Fri Apr 13 11:17:55 2012: executable does not belong to a package, ignoring
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
CrashReports: 600:1000:1000:13114:2012-04-13 13:47:48.508729000 -0700:2012-04-13 13:47:52.488691690 -0700:/var/crash/_usr_bin_apport-retrace.1000.crash
Date: Fri Apr 13 13:47:49 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/apport-retrace
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.7
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/apport-retrace -g -R -S system _usr_sbin_apt-cacher-ng.116.crash
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/apport-retrace', '-g', '-R', '-S', 'system', '_usr_sbin_apt-cacher-ng.116.crash']
SourcePackage: apport
Title: apport-retrace crashed with OSError in _execute_child(): [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2012-01-23 (81 days ago)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout libvirtd lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Indeed it seems that apport-retrace has a rather huge memory leak somewhere, I'll investigate this. Thanks for your report!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Fixed in trunk r2451.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.5.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
apport (2.5.1-0ubuntu1) quantal; urgency=low

  * New upstream release:
    - test_recoverable_problem.py: Fix test for calling test runner with
      absolute path.
    - packaging-apt-dpkg.py: Fix crash on writing virtual_mapping.db when
      running with --sandbox-dir and -S system or giving no --cache.
    - REThread.py: Fix re-raising of exceptions in Python 3. Thanks Martin
      Packman! (LP: #1024836)
    - apport-retrace: Keep compressed CoreDump from .crash files instead of
      uncompressing them into memory. This dramatically reduces memory usage.
      (LP: #981155)
    - Add an apport.memdbg() function which prints out current memory usage if
      APPORT_MEMDEBUG is set. Annotate apport-retrace with it.
    - hookutils.py: Allow specifying a list of profile names when using
      attach_mac_events(). Thanks Marc Deslauriers.
    - hookutils.py, attach_root_command_outputs() and root_command_output():
      Drop usage of sudo, kdesudo, and gksu, and replace with pkexec. For
      attach_root_command_outputs(), use a wrapper and proper .policy file
      which explains the action and works under every environment; thus
      attach_root_command_outputs() is preferred over root_command_output()
      now, as it provides a better user experience.
    - Package hooks which want to send the report to a different crash
      database than "default" can now also give the database specification
      itself in the "CrashDB" field, not just the DB name. With this, packages
      do not need to ship a separate /etc/apport/crashdb.conf.d/ file. Please
      see doc/package-hooks.txt for details. (LP: #551330)
    - report.py, add_hooks_info(): If reporting against a package/program in
      /opt, also search for package hooks in the corresponding /opt directory.
      This allows such hooks to define a custom crash database and thus report
      bugs against their own project instead of against the distribution.
      (LP: #1020503)
  * debian/rules: Call dh_install with --list-missing, and ignore .pyc and
    .egg-info files.
  * debian/apport.install: Install new polkit .policy and root_info_wrapper
    files, and add policykit-1 Recommends.
  * debian/apport.install: Ship is-enabled script.
  * debian/apport-kde.install: Ship userpass.ui file.
  * Drop debian/apport-retrace.manpages and debian/apport.manpages and install
    the man pages from *.install instead. This works better with
    --list-missing.
  * debian/apport.install: Install 000record-status pm-utils script, to
    unbreak suspend failure detection.
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:58:45 +0200

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

This bug is back in trunk as of revision 2537. "apport-retrace" gobbles up over a gigabyte of memory again for most bugs, even those with 4Mb core dumps. It's been like that for some time (sorry for the late report).

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I cannot reproduce this. I ran apport with -S system and no cache directories (so it had to download everything). For xeyes (tiny report) I get

VmPeak: 169884 kB
VmSize: 168680 kB
VmLck: 0 kB
VmPin: 0 kB
VmHWM: 103936 kB
VmRSS: 102880 kB
VmData: 78200 kB
VmPeak: 166392 kB

and for gedit (large report, over 5 MB compressed core dump) I get

VmSize: 148744 kB
VmLck: 0 kB
VmPin: 0 kB
VmHWM: 104744 kB
VmRSS: 87296 kB
VmData: 82324 kB
VmStk: 136 kB
VmExe: 2176 kB
VmLib: 8152 kB
VmPTE: 300 kB
VmSwap: 0 kB

given the overhead of Python etc. a magnitude of 100 MB data is very reasonable. Also, the original problem here has been fixed and the fix is still in place. Can you please file a new bug report with an example crash that causes memory usage to explode? Thanks!

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Thanks! I've reported my complains as bug 1086106, see you there :)