Bug 46

Summary: GV causes memory exhaustion
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: vladimip
Component: gvAssignee: David Lawrence <dkl>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.1   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1998-11-13 17:45:27 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: ---

Description vladimip 1998-11-11 22:32:28 UTC 
System description: RedHat 5.1 with all updates, XF86SVGA
server with Matrox Millenium II PCI card, 128MB SDRAM, 4GB
HDD, AMD K-6 266 CPU, generic Gigabyte TX mboard. X is
running in 1024x768, 32 bpp. Started `gv'. Opened a 10 page
PS doc. Selected a (big) section of the displayed page with
the middle mouse button and clicked on `64' with the right
mouse button on the submenu that appeared. X displays that
little stopwatch cursor and _everything_ freezes for one or
two minutes, the system swaps heavily in the meantime. After
swap and memory is exhausted, gv quits. Here's the error
message:

--------------------------------------------------
XIO:  fatal IO error 12 (Cannot allocate memory) on X server
":0.0" after 8093 requests (8092 known processed) with 150
events remaining.
 /home/vlad/devel/3475>$
[2]+  Exit 1                  gv
--------------------------------------------------

I can probably reproduce this as many times as I want,
although tried only three times.

I suspect that it is an X server bug which is only
triggerred by certain action such as the one in GV.
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 1998-11-13 12:39:59 UTC 
Well, then, don't do that. :)

Seriously, gv is trying to expand whatever you select to 64x
its size and let you scroll around in it. That's *going* to
take a huge amount of memory, especially if you select the
whole page.