Vmail - again.. ( out of free memory )

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) qdn.public.qnxrtp.applications
1

This is about the only real problem I’m seeing with Vmail.
( yeah, I’ve seen all the criticisms, but I like it anyway )

When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
to fix this short of rebooting.
Exiting and restarting VMail does not do it.
Logging off and back on does not do it.
Rebooting does do it.

What else might work ?

–
Cowboy

Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential
ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common
cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking
cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed,
then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can’t see the cap. I’ve
never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work.
– Peter Nelson

2

Cowboy <curt@gwis.com> wrote:

This is about the only real problem I’m seeing with Vmail.
( yeah, I’ve seen all the criticisms, but I like it anyway )

When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
to fix this short of rebooting.
Exiting and restarting VMail does not do it.
Logging off and back on does not do it.
Rebooting does do it.

What else might work ?

It probably creates some shared memory regions. Take a look in
/dev/shmem for some largish shared memory objects. Try removing
them. You might want to be careful – look at the link counts
on the shared memory too. Probably need to find entries with a
link count of 1.

-David

QNX Training Services
http://www.qnx.com/support/training/
Please followup in this newsgroup if you have further questions.

3

Previously, David Gibbs wrote in qdn.public.qnxrtp.applications:

Cowboy <> curt@gwis.com> > wrote:



When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
to fix this short of rebooting.



It probably creates some shared memory regions. Take a look in
/dev/shmem for some largish shared memory objects. Try removing
them.

Thanks, now to re-create the problem…

–
Cowboy

Can’t open /usr/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar.

4

Previously, David Gibbs wrote in qdn.public.qnxrtp.applications:

Cowboy <> curt@gwis.com> > wrote:

This is about the only real problem I’m seeing with Vmail.
( yeah, I’ve seen all the criticisms, but I like it anyway )

When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
to fix this short of rebooting.
Exiting and restarting VMail does not do it.
Logging off and back on does not do it.
Rebooting does do it.

What else might work ?

It probably creates some shared memory regions. Take a look in
/dev/shmem for some largish shared memory objects. Try removing
them. You might want to be careful – look at the link counts
on the shared memory too. Probably need to find entries with a
link count of 1.

Thanks, David.
Been watching, and since my original posting of the question, the
problem has not re-appeared. I’m sure it will, someday, and we’ll
see what happens…

–
Cowboy

When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.

5
Cowboy wrote:
Previously, David Gibbs wrote in qdn.public.qnxrtp.applications:
Cowboy <> wrote:

 This is about the only real problem I'm seeing with Vmail.
 ( yeah, I've seen all the criticisms, but I like it anyway )
 When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
 to fix this short of rebooting.
 Exiting and restarting VMail does not do it.
 Logging off and back on does not do it.
 Rebooting does do it.

 What else might work ?
It probably creates some shared memory regions.  Take a look in
/dev/shmem for some largish shared memory objects.  Try removing
them.    You might want to be careful -- look at the link counts
on the shared memory too.  Probably need to find entries with a
link count of 1.

 Thanks, David.
 Been watching, and since my original posting of the question, the
 problem has not re-appeared. I'm sure it will, someday, and we'll
 see what happens....


I always found that when vmail used all of free memory - typicially reading some funny news posting, that it would pop up a dialog that memory was not avial... or some such. At this point I would slay dumper and then click the OK on the notice. This was faster then waiting for the 256 meg dump file to be created. It was my impression that vmail had a serious memory leek not related to shared memory, because I could restart and continue - but making sure that I marked the article (or thread as read).

Mozilla at least dosn't have this bug - but vmail was a lot faster.

Dave
6

Previously, David Hawley wrote in qdn.public.qnxrtp.application

Cowboy wrote:


Previously, David Gibbs wrote in qdn.public.qnxrtp.applications:



Cowboy <> curt@gwis.com> > wrote:




This is about the only real problem I’m seeing with Vmail.
( yeah, I’ve seen all the criticisms, but I like it anyway )



When VMail runs out of free memory, there ought to be a way
to fix this short of rebooting.
Exiting and restarting VMail does not do it.
Logging off and back on does not do it.
Rebooting does do it.

What else might work ?

It probably creates some shared memory regions. Take a look in
/dev/shmem for some largish shared memory objects. Try removing
them. You might want to be careful – look at the link counts
on the shared memory too. Probably need to find entries with a
link count of 1.


Thanks, David.
Been watching, and since my original posting of the question, the
problem has not re-appeared. I’m sure it will, someday, and we’ll
see what happens…



I always found that when vmail used all of free memory - typicially
reading some funny news posting, that it would pop up a dialog that
memory was not avial… or some such. At this point I would slay dumper
and then click the OK on the notice. This was faster then waiting for
the 256 meg dump file to be created. It was my impression that vmail had
a serious memory leek not related to shared memory, because I could
restart and continue - but making sure that I marked the article (or
thread as read).

Mozilla at least dosn’t have this bug - but vmail was a lot faster.

Dave

Well, I got a chance to try that, and no luck.

It seems that the ONLY way to be able to re-start vmail after the “Out of
free storage” box appears, is to re-boot the machine.
The dump file is irrelevent, and the files in shmem are irrelevent.
( maybe not, but removing them makes no difference )

Also, it’s not using ALL of free memory, since other things continue
to run fine, and can still be started after the error, except vmail.
Clearly, it’s a bug in vmail.

There’s got to be a better way.
( OK, vmail WAS running three days before the error occured )

phemail is OK, sorta, actually eh…
but vmail is much nicer, especially since it reads news, and doesn’t try
to send web pages by default ( like mozilla, and others ).

OK. Vmail isn’t NewsXpress, but it’s one of the best *nix mail/news readers
that I’ve found, IMHO.

–
Cowboy

Vanilla wafer.