Re: Quite an odd post-commit error after a successful commit

Hi Malcolm,

From: Malcolm Rowe
Subject: Re: Quite an odd post-commit error after a successful commit
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:08:16 +0000

> Hi Nori,
>
> On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 10:23:07PM +0900, Kobayashi Noritada wrote:
> > When committing with a client, the client dumps core and the entire
> > working copy is locked (i.e. marked with "L").
>
> It should never be possible for the server to cause the clients to crash
> like this, although we did fix some crash bugs in 1.4.3 that could
> conceivably be triggered by this.
>
> Has the problem recurred since your original message?

Sorry for replying so late.

After my first report[1], the ensuring investigation revealed some
respects, and here I report them again.

[1] http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=122818

The post-commit error recurred a few times:

* [2006-12-21] The issue occurred and some lines were recorded in the
  server's error.log. The post-commit hook was not set up this time.
  (So, there was a mistake in my description, "The issue occurs only
  when post-commit hooks are turned on".)

* [2007-01-05] The issue occurred. This was the first time the issue
  occurred after our setting up the post-commit. Restarting apache
  (probably) resolved the issue. Report here[1].

* [2007-01-23] The issue recurred and restarting apache resolved it.

* [2007-03-06] The issue recurred and restarting apache resolved it.

In cases above, we used mainly Subversion 1.1.4 (and sometimes 1.3.2)
since the host was a Debian stable (sarge) machine. However, 1.1.4
was too outdated and I suggested using newly backported 1.4.2. The
server admin agreed about it and we upgraded the server to 1.4.2.

After that, THE issue have not recurred, but a little bit different
issue desribed as follows occurred on 2007-03-14 and 2007-03-17:

* This is also an issue in running post-commit hooks, but it is not a
  core dump or an error; it is a warning. When users commit files, a
  following warning sometimes occurs:
  "WARNING: Failed to start '/org/svn.debian.or.jp/repos/hooks/post-commit' hook"
  As the warning says, the post-commit hook is not invoked.

* There are some similarities to the previous issue:
  * The commit itself succeeds.
  * The occurrence of the warning and uninvokation of post-commit hook
    continues to occur in all commits once it occurs. Only one known
    resolution to stop it is restarting apache.

* There are differences from the previous issue, maybe resulted
  from the difference between an error and a warning:
  * The post-commit issue is not recorded in Apache's error log.
  * No lock left behind in the working copy. So, the issue is not
    so harmful, except that the post-commit hook is not invoked.

I cannot determine whether this issue (and the previous issue) is due
to a bug in Subversion, in Apache, or in the server's memory. I hope
the issue(s) would be resolved by information provided above...

Many thanks,

-nori