Re: fontconfig-2.1.92 considered harmful

From: Joe Marcus Clarke <marcus_at_marcuscom.com>
Date: 09 Apr 2003 04:26:26 -0400
On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 04:23, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 04:06, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 04:02:02AM -0400, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 03:59, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 10:51:15AM +0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 02:00:34PM -0400, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> > > > > > On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 13:30, Shizuka Kudo wrote:
> > > > > > > --- Ruslan Ermilov <ru_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 02:46:39PM +0200, CARTER Anthony wrote:
> > > > > > > > > I had this bug, but now it is over...It has been fixed. Do a CVSUP and all 
> > > > > > > > > should now be ok.
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > No.  This is with the latest port.  Where specifically it
> > > > > > > > was fixed?
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > The exact cvs message is as follows. Having you tried 'fc-cache -f' to rebuild font cache as root
> > > > > > > in a text console and delete the fontcache in your home directory (This solved my problem when
> > > > > > > starting a KDE session)?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > But Ruslan is reporting the bug in 2.1.92 which incorporates this fix. 
> > > > > > Besides, what Ruslan is seeing is a different crash.  I'm wondering if
> > > > > > it is indeed an issue with not having enough memory.  All my machines
> > > > > > have at least 512 MB of RAM, and I've never encountered this error. 
> > > > > > Anyone have a machine with < 200 MB of RAM and is _not_ having a problem
> > > > > > with fontconfig?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > Hmm, I initially didn't notice this, because it was a batched install
> > > > > of XFree86-4.  Now that I try to manually reinstall the port, it says:
> > > > > 
> > > > > ===>   Generating temporary packing list
> > > > > Running fc-cache to build fontconfig cache...
> > > > > fc-cache: "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts": caching, 0 fonts, 13 dirs
> > > > > fc-cache: "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi": caching, 397 fonts, 0 dirs
> > > > > fc-cache: "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi": Killed
> > > > > *** Error code 137
> > > > > 
> > > > > Stop in /usr/ports/x11-fonts/fontconfig.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Apr  9 10:46:14 lurker kernel: pid 6636 (fc-cache), uid 0, was killed: out of swap space
> > > > > 
> > > > > Where do I look for a fix?
> > > > > 
> > > > Okie dokie.  I've worked around this by stopping all applications.
> > > > While running, this fc-cache has eaten almost all of my memory.
> > > > My machine has 128M RAM and 128M swap.  It sure looks like a
> > > > memory leak issue.
> > > 
> > > Yeah, probably a combination of multiple memory leaks.  I tried to hunt
> > > it down earlier today, but ran out of time.  The debug output should
> > > help.  Thanks for the swap info.  I had a feeling systems like this
> > > might be the culprit.
> > > 
> > What I noticed by watching the swapinfo(8) output is that
> > it never releases the memory after continuing with the next
> > font directory.  Is this expected?  Does it need to preserve
> > something across different font directories?  If not, this
> > is a memory leak for sure.
> 
> Definitely.  The font caches are written out per directory.
> 
> > 
> > I'm willing to test the patches, should they be available.
> 
> As soon as I get your debug info, I'll be in a better position to create
> patches.  The good thing about fontconfig is that it comes it a built-in
> memory tracker.

I think I just found a workaround.  Ruslan, edit
/usr/X11R6/etc/fonts/fonts.conf, and instead of:

<dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts</dir>

Add a 

<dir></dir>

entry for each font directory in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts.  See if that
helps.

Joe

> 
> Joe
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Cheers,
-- 
PGP Key : http://www.marcuscom.com/pgp.asc

Received on Tue Apr 08 2003 - 23:26:31 UTC

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