Pkg [or help()!] crashes Julia in Windows binary

[stevengj]

Two of my students, one with Windows 7 and one with Windows 8, are experiencing a strange issue where Pkg.add("RPMmd") (or any other package, apparently) immediately crashes Julia. They are using the latest 64-bit Julia 0.2 binary snapshot for Windows, and deleted their AppData\Roaming\julia\packages (i.e. .julia) directories from earlier install attempts.

The problem does not seem entirely reproducible; on another Windows 7 or 8 machine we tried it works.

The versioninfo() output from the student with 64-bit Windows 8 is:

Julia Version 0.2.0-prerelease+3768
Commit d6f7c7c 2013-09-18 04:01:51 UTC
Platform Info:
  System: Windows (x86_64-w64-mingw32)
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  BLAS: libopenblas (USE64BITINT DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY)
  LAPACK: libopenblas
  LIBM: libopenlibm

A screenshot of his Julia session is attached below:

If you delete the AppData\Roaming\julia\packages directory, Julia prints a little more, outputting:

INFO: Initializing package repository C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Julia\packages
INFO: Cloning METADATA from git://github.com/JuliaLang/METADATA.jl

and then exiting. (With no output on subsequent tries.)

Running git-cmd in the Git subdirectory and running git clone git://github.com/JuliaLang/METADATA.jl manually seemed to work.

Any ideas?

cc: @StefanKarpinski, @vtjnash

[stevengj]

The METADATA repo seems to be cloned correctly, so the crash must be in a subsequent step. I'm still guessing it's some problem interacting with Windows git (possibly related to #4349). .... would be nice if there were a simple way to get more verbose output from Pkg. @StefanKarpinski?

[stevengj]

cc: @staticfloat

[stevengj]

Looks like it's not a Pkg or git bug specifically: turns out that the help() command also crashes Julia.

Even stranger, the same student reports that help crashes on the latest build, but works on Julia Version 0.2.0-prerelease+3441, on which Pkg.add("Color") works, but Pkg.add("RPMmd") crashes.

[stevengj]

Executing the following my_init_help() function (based on Base.Help.init_help()) crashes Julia:

function my_init_help()
    println("Loading help data...")
    helpdb = evalfile(Base.Help.helpdb_filename())
    CATEGORY_LIST = {}
    CATEGORY_DICT = Dict()
    MODULE_DICT = Dict()
    FUNCTION_DICT = Dict()
    for (cat,mod,func,desc) in helpdb
        if !haskey(CATEGORY_DICT, cat)
        push!(CATEGORY_LIST, cat)
        CATEGORY_DICT[cat] = {}
        end
        if !isempty(mod)
        mfunc = mod * "." * func
        desc = Base.Help.decor_help_desc(func, mfunc, desc)
        else
            mfunc = func
        end
        push!(CATEGORY_DICT[cat], mfunc)
        if !haskey(FUNCTION_DICT, mfunc)
        FUNCTION_DICT[mfunc] = {}
        end
        push!(FUNCTION_DICT[mfunc], desc)
            if !haskey(MODULE_DICT, func)
        MODULE_DICT[func] = {}
            end
        if !in(mod, MODULE_DICT[func])
        push!(MODULE_DICT[func], mod)
        end
    end
end

but the following does not crash:

function my_init_help()
    println("Loading help data...")
    helpdb = evalfile(Base.Help.helpdb_filename())
    CATEGORY_LIST = {}
    CATEGORY_DICT = Dict()
    MODULE_DICT = Dict()
    FUNCTION_DICT = Dict()
    for (cat,mod,func,desc) in helpdb
        if !haskey(CATEGORY_DICT, cat)
        push!(CATEGORY_LIST, cat)
        CATEGORY_DICT[cat] = {}
        end
        if !isempty(mod)
        mfunc = mod * "." * func
        desc = Base.Help.decor_help_desc(func, mfunc, desc)
        else
            mfunc = func
        end
        push!(CATEGORY_DICT[cat], mfunc)
#        if !haskey(FUNCTION_DICT, mfunc)
#       FUNCTION_DICT[mfunc] = {}
#        end
#        push!(FUNCTION_DICT[mfunc], desc)
#            if !haskey(MODULE_DICT, func)
#       MODULE_DICT[func] = {}
#            end
#        if !in(mod, MODULE_DICT[func])
#       push!(MODULE_DICT[func], mod)
#        end
    end
end

Furthermore, uncommentng just the if !haskey(FUNCTION_DICT, mfunc) block causes it to crash!

Something is seriously weird here.

[stevengj]

@vtjnash, could there possibly be something left over in the Registry (or something?) from previous install attempts that is causing problems? @loladiro?

[Keno]

Not to my knowledge.

[vtjnash]

I don't put anything in the registry. It's a long shot, but perhaps the debug version of julia would give more info as it crashed? Unfortunately, the example didn't crash on any of the test machines I tried.

[stevengj]

Unfortunately, the debug version doesn't give any more info as it crashes.

[WestleyArgentum]

@keesvp and I are seeing the same issue, Pkg and help calls cause a crash. Windows 8, 64bit (the binary release)

[vtjnash]

A backtrace, or access to a machine would be awesome. PM me if you are willing to allow me to control you machine for a little while.

Also, if you could check whether it happens with the 32-bit build on your machine or not, that may also be useful information.

[gevahn]

I'm one of the original problematic students.
32-bit gives the same results.

[keesvp]

Tried 32bit language distribution.
Directly in Julia shell, help() crashes immediately, Pkg.update seems to work.

Package update from Julia Studio results in:

julia> Updating packages
INFO: Updating METADATA...
fatal: Unable to look up github.com (port 9418) (A non-recoverable error occurred during a database lookup. )

and crash (of Julia language)

[vtjnash]

can you see if any of the following crash:
code_lowered(help,())
code_typed(help,())
code_llvm(help,())
code_native(help,())

[gevahn]

update: on 32-bit I can install I Julia, but on an IJulia notebook, I get a kernel is dead error

[keesvp]

none of these crashes, on both 32 and 64