[New-bugs-announce] [issue18808] Thread.join returns before PyThreadState is destroyed

[Tamas K]

New submission from Tamas K:

When a thread is started in CPython, t_bootstrap [Modules/threadmodule.c] creates a PyThreadState object and then calls Thread.__bootstrap_inner [Lib/threading.py] which calls Thread.run, protected with self.__block, a Condition. Thread.join uses the same __block to block until Thread.run finished.

When Thread.run finished, __bootstrap_inner notifies on __block, so join will return. Here lies a race condition, if a thread switch to Thread.join occures before __bootstrap_inner returns to t_bootstrap. Then join will return before the PyThreadState for the thread is destroyed by t_bootstrap.

It is mostly harmless for general use, as __bootstrap_inner eventually gets scheduled again and PyThreadState is taken care of.

However. Py_EndInterpreter [Python/pythonrun.c] can be called when only the main interpreter thread is running. So when we want to call Py_EndInterpreter, we signal every other thread to stop, and join them. And when Thread.join returns, we call Py_EndInterpreter. Py_EndInterpreter checks if there are any other PyThreadStates still around and does a Py_FatalError.

As a workaround, we now do a sleep after join.

----------
components: Interpreter Core, Library (Lib)
messages: 195891
nosy: Tamas.K
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Thread.join returns before PyThreadState is destroyed
type: crash
versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue18808>
_______________________________________