# Garbage Collection causes segfaults **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby-Gnome 2\ **Created:** [June 13, 2007, 7:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614 "2007-06-13T19:46:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 7:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/1 "2007-06-13T19:46:55Z")
Hi. I’m having a problem with a Ruby-Gnome2 application I’ve been building. For some reason my program randomly segfaults. I fixed this by disabling garbage collection(Maybe GC was cleaning up gnome objects that were still in use?) but of course now my application runs out of memory relatively quickly (not so much from the gtk objects, but from my non-gnome objects that are memory hogs that need garbage collection). I was wondering if there is any known reasons that the garbage collection might cause problems with ruby-gnome2, and if there are any workarounds I might employ to avoid them besides disabling my garbage collection? Any ideas would be appreciated Conan ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/2 "2007-06-13T20:06:01Z")
On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 07:46:55PM +0200, Conan wrote: > I was wondering if there is any known reasons that the garbage > collection might cause problems with ruby-gnome2, and if there are any > workarounds I might employ to avoid them besides disabling my garbage > collection? I guess you’re still using Ruby-Gnome2 version 0.15, which had lots of errors related to memory management. You should upgrade to 0.16. FYI, you can also manually run garbage collection with GC.start. Cheers, Markus * * * This [SF.net](http://SF.net) email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. [http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/](http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/) ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/3 "2007-06-13T20:29:29Z")
Markus K. wrote: > I guess you’re still using Ruby-Gnome2 version 0.15, which had lots of > errors > related to memory management. You should upgrade to 0.16. > > FYI, you can also manually run garbage collection with GC.start. I’m using the ruby-gnome2-0.16.0-1-i386-mswin32.exe installer, so that should be ok?. GC.start won’t run while GC is disabled(and when it is enabled, it’ll occasionally cause an segfault which seems to be my problem) ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 12:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/4 "2007-06-14T00:05:32Z")
Ok, hopefully this code comes out unmangled… To trigger a segfault, just run this code and click furiously on the listbox. After a while(10 seconds of furious mouse clicking) it’ll segfault on my computer. I’m running ruby 1.8.2 on a windows 32 bit machine with ruby-gnome2-0.16.0-1(Windows installer) #Contrived example to get a segfault bug require ‘gtk2’ #Fill up the list box def fill\_box(model) [‘Stuff’,‘More Stuff’,‘Cool Stuff’,‘Lame stuff’].each do |l| iter = model.append iter[0] = l end end window = Gtk::Window.new label\_model = Gtk::ListStore.new(String) label\_box = Gtk::TreeView.new(label\_model) t\_render = Gtk::CellRendererText.new label\_box.append\_column(Gtk::TreeViewColumn.new(“Sample Set”, t\_render, :text =\> 0)) window.add(label\_box) fill\_box(label\_model) label\_box.signal\_connect(“cursor-changed”) do |treeview| 0.upto(100) do |iii| #More chances to generate a bug current\_label = treeview.selection.selected current\_label = current\_label[0] if(current\_label != nil) label\_model.clear ``` fill_box(label_model) ``` end end window.show\_all Gtk.main ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/5 "2007-06-14T16:48:47Z")
Hmm, maybe thats the case then. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens. (Also, try changing the 100 to 1000 or 10000, that reduces the number of furious clicks needed) Daniel L. wrote: > After about a minute of clicking as fast as I possibly could, I started > to consider the possibility that you were having a little fun with me. > 🙂 > > Sorry, no segfaulting. Have you tried running with Ruby 1.8.6? I have > used another C extension that segfaulted until I upgraded. > > best, > Dan > > Conan R. wrote: > > > label\_box = Gtk::TreeView.new(label\_model) > > current\_label = current\_label[0] if(current\_label != nil) > > label\_model.clear > > > > ``` > > fill_box(label_model) > > > > ``` > > > > end > > end > > > > window.show\_all > > Gtk.main ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/6 "2007-06-14T18:40:46Z")
Yeah, your right. Upgrading to Ruby 1.8.6 seems to have solved the problems. Great, thanks for your help! Conan R. wrote: > Hmm, maybe thats the case then. I’ll give it a shot and see what > happens. (Also, try changing the 100 to 1000 or 10000, that reduces the > number of furious clicks needed) ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/7 "2007-06-14T08:53:38Z")
After about a minute of clicking as fast as I possibly could, I started to consider the possibility that you were having a little fun with me. 🙂 Sorry, no segfaulting. Have you tried running with Ruby 1.8.6? I have used another C extension that segfaulted until I upgraded. best, Dan Conan R. wrote: > label\_box = Gtk::TreeView.new(label\_model) > current\_label = current\_label[0] if(current\_label != nil) > label\_model.clear > > ``` > fill_box(label_model) > > ``` > > end > end > > window.show\_all > Gtk.main * * * This [SF.net](http://SF.net) email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. [http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/](http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/) ---
**Author:** ![conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@conan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/garbage-collection-causes-segfaults/156614/8 "2007-06-15T18:00:26Z")
Hi, If you’ll have segfaults problem again, require the code below before executing your apps. ## gctest.rb ## Thread.new do loop do sleep 0.01 GC.start p “GCed” end end Then, $ ruby -rgctest yourapp.rb You are able to get the segfaults faster. On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:40:46 +0200 Conan R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). * * * This [SF.net](http://SF.net) email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. [http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/](http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/)