Re: 20051012: ernie.tamu.edu is getting unstable...

James,

>Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:19:10 -0500
>From: James Esslinger <address@hidden>
>Organization: Texas A&M University
>To: Steve Emmerson <address@hidden>
>Subject: Re: 20051012: ernie.tamu.edu is getting unstable... 

The above message contained the following:

> It's got me stumped as well.  The issue is only present in LDM.

And, apparently, only on your machines.  I haven't heard of anyone else
having this problem.

> ...  I thought it may have been a  
> memory issue, but tests have proven to be inconclusive.

"Inconclusive" is, indeed, the operative word.

> I would think if it were some piece of faulty hardware we would see  
> intermittent crashes in other applications as well.

Not necessarily.  The LDM makes much greater use of memory-mapping,
semaphores, locking, I/O, signals, etc., than the vast majority of other
applications.  So the absence of crashes by other applications doesn't
rule-out problems with the operating system or hardware.  Until we
pin-down the problem, I'm not ruling anything out.

Keep an eye on Ernie (I'm watching it here).

Regards,
Steve Emmerson