[RESOLVED] urxvt spawns extra process

[dkeg]

Can anyone verify if this is also happening to them?

When I use urxvt, from anyway (dmenu, config file, terminal), I get this, an extra process. So in htop I have 2 processes per one terminal session.

But using xterm, I don't get the same.

I logged into my bloat spin. It doesn't happen there. I haven't upgraded, so that is still on 3.12-5. Thinking possibly related to 3.12-6, went back to colin, used an older kernel, but no change.

This is definitely new, as in the last week.

[DebianJoe]

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 └─urxvt─┬─urxvt
         └─zsh───pstree

Me too. -_-

Edit: I don't recall seeing this before, but I haven't even looked at a process tree in months. I couldn't tell you when it started.

[dkeg]

last week when I posted the dmenu 'fix' in the suckless tools thread, it wasn't happening. So something happened b/t then and the other day (at least for me). I had noticed a few days ago, just ignored it.

[xaos52]

Well spotted, dkeg.
You are absolutely right.
I have a waldorf install upgraded to sid and last updated Nov 18.
pstree shows only one process per urxvt instance.

My up-to-date sid shows 2 processes per urxvt instance.

[dkeg]

ocd payoff :D

I have done some searching, but can't find anything. I tried to purge and re-install, and also tried to install just rxvt-unicode as opposed to rxvt-unicode-256 just for due diligence sake, also no change.

[xaos52]

I have now upgraded rxvt-unicode-256color from version 9.18-3 to 9.19.1 on the waldorf system, and that version has the 2 urxvt processes per launched urxvt instance.

Seems like rxvt-unicode-256colors changed an 'exec' system call to to a 'fork' system call somewhere between version 9.18-3 (not included) and 9.19-1.

[dkeg]

looks like 9.19-1 was published on Dec 22.

[xaos52]

No other versions were available after 9.18-3, so the new behaviour
came with version 9.19-1 - the current version, and was introduced by upstream. ( I suspect correcting the utmp behaviour )

See http://snapshot.debian.org/package/rxvt-unicode/

[pidsley]

FWIW, I do not see this behavior on Arch, CRUX, Gentoo, or Void running urxvt 9.19-1, or on Debian running rxvt-unicode 9.19-1 built from source, only on Debian running the standard Debian rxvt-unicode (or rxvt-unicode-256color) package.

I built the source from here: http://dist.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/

(edit) using "apt-get source" to get the source from Debian and building it also produces an executable that works properly.

[dkeg]

Great pids, that does in fact work. That was going to be my next step. Thanks for the motivation. I did have problems with perl, the .configure err'd out. So instead I built as

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./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-xft --disable-perl --enable-256-color && make
sudo make install

I'll look into the perl error another time

[pidsley]

I solved that perl config error with "sudo apt-get build-dep rxvt-unicode" -- probably not the most elegant solution, but I did it on a test machine. Disabling perl makes more sense; I never use the perl extensions.

I do wonder what's different in the Debian package, but not enough to do much more digging.

[DebianJoe]

Thanks for the solution.

[xaos52]

Thanks pids.
I could not find anything at a first glance in the debian patches that hinted it might be
causing this.

Filed a bug report against rxvt-unicode-256color in Debian.
Will post the bug number as soon as I get it myself.

(edit) using "apt-get source" to get the source from Debian and building it also produces an executable that works properly.

Not for me. Building any of the rxvt-unicode* packages from source and
installing them gives the errorneous behaviour. On a fully upgraded
Debian sid that is.

[dkeg]

I only d/l'd the tar package, did not use apt-get source. Would there, should there be any difference? Did you try just with extracting the tarball and building? Also wasn't limited to rxvt-unicode-256-color, same issue with plain rxvt-unicode too.

[xaos52]

apt-get source downloads the upstream tarball, untars it and adds the
debian subdir, containing the "debianization' of the package.
To rebuild the debian way, cd to the package dir, so that you have the
'debian' subdir in the current dir and launch:

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dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc

This will apply the debian patches to the upstream sources and create one or more .deb files in the parent dir, which you
can then install with

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sudo dpkg -i <path-to-the-.deb-file>

Make sure you remove eventually installed package first.

[pidsley]

Not for me. Building any of the rxvt-unicode* packages from source and
installing them gives the errorneous behaviour. On a fully upgraded
Debian sid that is.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I did not build the Debian package and install it. I only built the executable and ran it (from the "src" directory). Given that urxvt worked on all my other machines, and worked built from original source, I assumed it was something in the Debian patches that was causing the problem, and I stopped looking.

In any event, if you built the Debian package and are seeing the error, this confirms that it's a problem in a Debian patch. It will be interesting to see how they respond to the bug report. Thank you for filing it.

[dkeg]

^ yes that its what i did. And thank you doc for opening the bug report. When you post the bug # I'll open a thread in our forums bug section.

[xaos52]

Here is that bug report.

[dkeg]

Great, Thank you, I'll do it when i get home.

[pidsley]

They closed the bug. I switched to aterm.