RFR(XS) 8036823: Stack trace sometimes shows 'locked' instead of 'waiting to lock'

David Holmes david.holmes at oracle.com
Tue May 20 05:28:12 UTC 2014


Hi Dan,

On 20/05/2014 3:04 PM, Daniel D. Daugherty wrote:
> David,
>
> I'll have to politely disagree...

That's why this code is so much fun ;-)

You are of course correct. I misread this part of the inflate() code:

           m->set_owner(mark->locker());

to be setting the thread id as the owner, but in fact it is the 
BasicLock address as you note.

As I flagged with Zhengyu in email, and as per the July 2012 discussion 
Kris Mok referred back to, I was wondering why this code did not do the 
"obvious" thing - and indeed why no one suggested checking the owner 
directly when I made the check_pending_monitor change back in 2006. Now 
I know. :)

However I don't think we need to be concerned about BiasedLocking 
because that goes away as soon as we inflate - and we have inflated. So 
_owner is either a Thread ID or a BasicLock address.

But even so isn't the check:

mark->monitor()->owner() != thread()

perfectly valid because a BasicLock address will never match a thread 
pointer?

Thanks,
David

> Here's the code in ObjectMonitor::exit() that handles the case
> when a thread finds itself exiting a monitor that was stack
> locked when it entered, but is now inflated:
>
> src/share/vm/runtime/objectMonitor.cpp:
>
>     912  void ATTR ObjectMonitor::exit(bool not_suspended, TRAPS) {
>     913     Thread * Self = THREAD ;
>     914     if (THREAD != _owner) {
>     915       if (THREAD->is_lock_owned((address) _owner)) {
>     916         // Transmute _owner from a BasicLock pointer to a Thread
> address
> .
>     917         // We don't need to hold _mutex for this transition.
>     918         // Non-null to Non-null is safe as long as all readers can
>     919         // tolerate either flavor.
>     920         assert (_recursions == 0, "invariant") ;
>     921         _owner = THREAD ;
>     922         _recursions = 0 ;
>     923         OwnerIsThread = 1 ;
>     924       } else {
>     925         // NOTE: we need to handle unbalanced monitor enter/exit
>     926         // in native code by throwing an exception.
>     927         // TODO: Throw an IllegalMonitorStateException ?
>     928         TEVENT (Exit - Throw IMSX) ;
>     929         assert(false, "Non-balanced monitor enter/exit!");
>     930         if (false) {
>     931 THROW(vmSymbols::java_lang_IllegalMonitorStateException());
>     932         }
>     933         return;
>     934       }
>     935     }
>
> so that _owner field when we did the stack dump still contained
> the BaseLock pointer instead of the JavaThread pointer...
>
> Dan
>
>
> On 5/19/14 8:09 PM, David Holmes wrote:
>> Dan,
>>
>> My understanding of the existing code and hence the modified code is
>> that we have already established that we are dealing with an inflated
>> monitor and hence the owner really must be the owning thread - not a
>> stack address for a BasicLock. Isn't that what mark->has_monitor()
>> establishes?
>>
>> Note that we can not have reached a safepoint inflation is in progress.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> David
>>
>> On 20/05/2014 9:47 AM, Daniel D. Daugherty wrote:
>>> On 5/19/14 7:58 AM, Zhengyu Gu wrote:
>>>> This is a simple fix for incorrect lock state.
>>>>
>>>> The timing on setting thread's pending monitor can result stack trace
>>>> dump reporting incorrect lock state. The solution is to check the
>>>> monitor's owner, if the owner is other than the current thread, then
>>>> the monitor, is or is in process of being, set the pending monitor of
>>>> current thread.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Bug: https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8036823
>>>> Webrev: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~zgu/8036823/webrev.00/
>>>
>>> src/share/vm/runtime/vframe.cpp
>>>      First off, I concur that the existing code has a problem.
>>>      However, I think the proposed solution has at least one
>>>      different problem.
>>>
>>>      Here's the original code:
>>>
>>>   183   // Print out all monitors that we have locked or are trying
>>> to lock
>>>   184   GrowableArray<MonitorInfo*>* mons = monitors();
>>>   185   if (!mons->is_empty()) {
>>>   186     bool found_first_monitor = false;
>>>   187     for (int index = (mons->length()-1); index >= 0; index--) {
>>>   188       MonitorInfo* monitor = mons->at(index);
>>>   189       if (monitor->eliminated() && is_compiled_frame()) { //
>>> Eliminated in compiled code
>>>   190         if (monitor->owner_is_scalar_replaced()) {
>>>   191           Klass* k =
>>> java_lang_Class::as_Klass(monitor->owner_klass());
>>>   192           st->print("\t- eliminated <owner is scalar replaced> (a
>>> %s)", k->external_name());
>>>   193         } else {
>>>   194           oop obj = monitor->owner();
>>>   195           if (obj != NULL) {
>>>   196             print_locked_object_class_name(st, obj, "eliminated");
>>>   197           }
>>>   198         }
>>>   199         continue;
>>>   200       }
>>>   201       if (monitor->owner() != NULL) {
>>>   202
>>>   203         // First, assume we have the monitor locked. If we haven't
>>> found an
>>>   204         // owned monitor before and this is the first frame, then
>>> we need to
>>>   205         // see if we have completed the lock or we are blocked
>>> trying to
>>>   206         // acquire it - we can only be blocked if the monitor is
>>> inflated
>>>   207
>>>   208         const char *lock_state = "locked"; // assume we have the
>>> monitor locked
>>>   209         if (!found_first_monitor && frame_count == 0) {
>>>   210           markOop mark = monitor->owner()->mark();
>>>   211           if (mark->has_monitor() &&
>>>   212               mark->monitor() ==
>>> thread()->current_pending_monitor()) {
>>>   213             lock_state = "waiting to lock";
>>>   214           }
>>>   215         }
>>>   216
>>>   217         found_first_monitor = true;
>>>   218         print_locked_object_class_name(st, monitor->owner(),
>>> lock_state);
>>>   219       }
>>>   220     }
>>>   221   }
>>>
>>>      The algorithm is pretty basic (no pun intended):
>>>
>>>      - for each monitor (BasicLock) in the Java frame
>>>        - if the monitor has been eliminated and this is
>>>          a compiled frame
>>>          - do compiler specific handling
>>>          - continue
>>>        - if the monitor has a owner
>>>          - set lock_state = "locked"
>>>          - if this is the first monitor and the top most frame
>>>            - set mark = associated Object's mark
>>>            - if the mark has an ObjectMonitor and
>>>                 the Java thread is pending on that monitor
>>>               - set lock_state = "waiting to lock"
>>>        - set found_first_monitor flag
>>>        - print info about current monitor including
>>>          the lock_state
>>>
>>>      A BasicLock is a Java monitor from the Java frame's point of
>>>      view. It might be implemented as a stack lock, a biased lock
>>>      or an inflated lock (ObjectMonitor).
>>>
>>>      The problem that I see with the algorithm is that it is
>>>      traversing a collection of BasicLocks and then asking
>>>      lock implementation specific questions in a an effort to
>>>      determine if the BasicLock is owned by the Java thread
>>>      whose frames we are traversing.
>>>
>>>      We already know that this code:
>>>
>>>          mark->monitor() == thread()->current_pending_monitor()
>>>
>>>      is specific to inflated monitors (ObjectMonitor) and it
>>>      has a flaw because the target thread can be stopped at
>>>      a safepoint before the _current_pending_monitor field
>>>      is set.
>>>
>>>      The proposed code:
>>>
>>>          mark->monitor()->owner() != thread()
>>>
>>>      compares the owner of the inflated monitor to the Java
>>>      thread whose frames we are traversing. The problem is
>>>      that the ObjectMonitor::_owner field is not always a
>>>      pointer to the JavaThread. Right after a stack lock
>>>      is inflated, the ObjectMonitor::_owner field is set
>>>      to the mark->locker() stack address; see:
>>>
>>>      src/share/vm/runtime/synchronizer.cpp:
>>>      line 1283: m->set_owner(mark->locker());
>>>
>>>      So the proposed code will report "waiting to lock" for a
>>>      Java monitor where the monitor is just transitioning
>>>      from a stack lock to an inflated lock. Of course, the
>>>      race is even tighter in this case. The target Java thread
>>>      (T1) has to have just acquired the uninflated monitor
>>>      and still be in the same frame in which that monitor was
>>>      acquired at the same time that another thread (T2) lost
>>>      the race to acquire the monitor. So T2 has to have just
>>>      inflated the monitor, T1 has still be in the same frame
>>>      in which it acquired the monitor and someone has to ask
>>>      for a thread dump. Pretty cool.
>>>
>>>      Another thought has occurred to me. T1 owns the monitor,
>>>      T2 is contending for the monitor and is starting to inflate
>>>      it, we request a thread dump. Is it possible to see the
>>>      BasicLock in T2's Java frame, see that the Object does not
>>>      yet have an inflated monitor (!mark->has_monitor()) and
>>>      report that T2 has the monitor "locked"?
>>>
>>>      This last scenario would again result in more than one
>>>      thread being reported as having the same monitor locked.
>>>
>>>      To sum up:
>>>
>>>      I think both the current code and the proposed code have
>>>      issues and we need to look at this a different way. We
>>>      probably something like:
>>>
>>>          MonitorInfo::is_locked_by_thread(JavaThread jt)
>>>
>>>      that encapsulates and isolates the logic needed to
>>>      determine if JavaThread 'jt' owns the BasicLock. It
>>>      will need to know how to check:
>>>
>>>      - stack lock ownership (see JavaThread::is_lock_owned())
>>>      - biased lock ownership (don't know how to do this one)
>>>      - inflated lock ownership (_owner field == jt)
>>>
>>>      The stack lock ownership check needs to be done before
>>>      the inflated lock ownership check. That's because the
>>>      _owner field in the inflated lock can be the
>>>      mark->locker() stack address when it is initially
>>>      inflated.
>>>
>>>      I couldn't figure out the biased locking ownership
>>>      check quickly so I don't know where it fits in the
>>>      checking ownership pecking order.
>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry this turned out to be not so simple... Welcome to
>>> the joy of locking...
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> P.S.
>>> Of course, now that we've discovered at least one
>>> misuse of current_pending_monitor(), we should probably
>>> audit the other uses of it also...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> -Zhengyu
>>>
>


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