Description of problem: As of current libvirt-python.git, according to libvirt-override.c, if implementing custom event loop in Python, ff callback is called from libvirt_virEventRemoveHandleFunc, which is a C glue between virEventRegisterImpl and actual removeHandle function written in Python: > result = PyEval_CallObject(removeHandleObj, pyobj_args); > if (!result) { > PyErr_Print(); > PyErr_Clear(); > } else if (!PyTuple_Check(result) || PyTuple_Size(result) != 3) { > DEBUG("%s: %s must return opaque obj registered with %s" > "to avoid leaking libvirt memory\n", > __FUNCTION__, NAME(removeHandle), NAME(addHandle)); > } else { > opaque = PyTuple_GetItem(result, 1); > ff = PyTuple_GetItem(result, 2); > cff = PyvirFreeCallback_Get(ff); > if (cff) > (*cff)(PyvirVoidPtr_Get(opaque)); > retval = 0; > } This is exactly what one should not be doing according to documentation [1]: > If the opaque user data requires free'ing when the handle is unregistered, > then a 2nd callback can be supplied for this purpose. This callback needs to > be invoked from a clean stack. If 'ff' callbacks are invoked directly from the > virEventRemoveHandleFunc they will likely deadlock in libvirt. [1] https://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt-event.html#virEventAddHandleFunc This is true, the deadlock occurs. When the "result" tuple is mangled to have None as third item ("ff"), then cff = PyvirFreeCallback_Get(ff) is NULL and the deadlock does not happen. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Current git as of January-March 2017 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: def remove_handle(...): #... return opaque libvirt.virEventRegisterImpl(..., remove_handle, ...) libvirt.open(uri).close() Actual results: deadlock inside libvirtmod Additional info: The script examples/event-test.py does not deadlock, because it does not return anything (that is, returns None) from Python, so the second if block happens and the ff callback, if any, is not executed (and probably something leaks, but I didn't check for that). Everything also applies to to timeouts (libvirt_virEventRemoteTimeoutFunc).