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Re: [ts-7000] Re: Memory buffers goes to zero - ts7260 hangs

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Subject: Re: [ts-7000] Re: Memory buffers goes to zero - ts7260 hangs
From: "Breton M. Saunders" <>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:30:07 +0100
tedapt wrote:
> Thanks Breton.  There is a lot of mystery in the Java garbage collection 
> aspect of this problem.  However, this is a large app and about two years in 
> development, conversion to C is unfortunately not an option. What I really 
> need is a better way to measure where the memory problem arises (or perhaps 
> that is just a shadow of the real problem).
>   
Sorry - I realize that wasn't a particularly helpful suggestion. :)
The best definition for "Buffers" that I've found so far is: 
http://lwn.net/Articles/28345/  - which look like raw disk buffers; 
presumably for speeding up device i/o, beyond what a standard disk cache 
is capable of doing.

Are you using the sdcard for disk storage on this device?  If so, can 
you try running your application completely off of a ramdisk or off of 
an NFS partition and verify that the problem still occurs.
> I suppose at this point I'm really looking for more insight into what 
> "Buffers" really means? I've read that this is either related to data blocks 
> or interprocess communications. Hoping to better understand what that means 
> (and ideally to somehow connect that to a particular thread) to perhaps nail 
> down the few lines of Java code somewhere in the vast sea that could be 
> causing the problem and rewrite that.
>   
I don't think its a few java lines that are causing the problem.  If the 
machine is locking up then you've uncovered a kernel bug; which isn't 
unlikely given the amount of dodgey code used to get memory working on 
the ep93xx with linux - due to the ep93xx's awkward layout of physical 
memory.
> Otherwise, hoping to identify some OS configuration variables (e.g., through 
> sysctl) that might make a difference if tweaked.
>
> Have also tried allocating more and less heap to Java, with no effect, as 
> well have tried touching large chunks of memory when my app initializes to 
> try to ensure that enough memory is being allocated. But once again, the 
> problem seems most closely tied to the "Buffers" value, not overall memory 
> allocation.
>   
Can you try running your application under a 2.6 series kernel?  Either 
try with TS's 2.6.21, or try with some of the later revisions, like 
2.6.27.  I don't believe that 2.6.28 or 2.6.29 are stable yet using 
sparsemem.

Finally, are you doing I/O by peek/poke via /dev/mem? 

    Cheers,

    -Brett


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