Issue 1332869: Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized (original) (raw)
Created on 2005-10-20 05:22 by ajmitch, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.
Messages (11)
Author: Andrew Mitchell (ajmitch)
Date: 2005-10-20 05:22
When running 'bzr status' on Ubuntu 5.10 with python 2.4.2, I came across the error: Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized (version mismatch?) Aborted
The bzr code in question has a del method which when invoked (eventually) imports socket (which imports _socket), causing everything to fall over in a heap.
A backtrace is available at http://pastebin.com/399461
Author: Neal Norwitz (nnorwitz) * 
Date: 2005-10-20 05:37
Logged In: YES user_id=33168
Are there any other extension modules in the system that are not provided with python? When you went into gdb did it print a long list of dynamic modules loaded? Can you provide that info too?
I'm guessing this is a memory overwrite which can happen with poorly behaved C extension modules. You could try running python under valgrind and see what it reports.
Author: Neal Norwitz (nnorwitz) *
Date: 2005-10-20 05:39
Logged In: YES user_id=33168
Also, where is the bzr code and what version are you running?
Author: Andrew Mitchell (ajmitch)
Date: 2005-10-20 08:04
Logged In: YES user_id=19159
Feedback in #bzr indicated that I was triggering this code: http://pastebin.com/399491 and also something similar to http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-September/038151.html Another example that triggers it is http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-November/040188.html It's all a stock breezy system, no external modules, and bzr is retrieved from running: rsync -av bazaar-ng.org::bazaar-ng/bzr/bzr.dev . I was using the latest revision at the time this happened.
Author: Andrew Mitchell (ajmitch)
Date: 2005-10-20 08:51
Logged In: YES user_id=19159
Also, gdb did not report other modules loaded
Author: Michael Hudson (mwh)
Date: 2005-10-20 10:09
Logged In: YES user_id=6656
Are you using daemon threads?
Why is a del method importing things?
Author: Neal Norwitz (nnorwitz) *
Date: 2005-10-21 05:55
Logged In: YES user_id=33168
Hey Tim, I'm hoping you can take some time to long at this patch (you too Michael and anyone else listening).
Attached is a patch which seems to fix this problem. At least it fixes it from Tim's example in the mail from Nov (I think). It moves initialized down after the GC collect.
Is this patch a good or bad thing?
Andrew, it would be interesting if you could test this patch (you will need to rebuild python) for bzr. I couldn't trigger the problem from my version.
Author: Neal Norwitz (nnorwitz) *
Date: 2005-10-21 06:15
Logged In: YES user_id=33168
Well, what I really hope is that Tim can make some time to look at this patch. Feel free to long over it if you wish. :-)
Author: Tim Peters (tim.peters) *
Date: 2006-03-31 17:46
Logged In: YES user_id=31435
Sorry for the delay! I didn't realize this was assigned to me. Note that the possiblity for problems here was already noted in Py_Finalize():
/* Collect garbage. This may call finalizers; it's nice tocall these * before all modules are destroyed. * XXX If a del or weakref callback is triggered here, and tries to * XXX import a module, bad things can happen, because Python no * XXX longer believes it's initialized. * XXX Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized (version mismatch?) * XXX is easy to provoke that way. I've also seen, e.g., * XXX Exception exceptions.ImportError: 'No module named sha' * XXX in <function callback at 0x008F5718> ignored * XXX but I'm unclear on exactly how that one happens. In any case, * XXX I haven't seen a real-life report of either of these. */ PyGC_Collect();
I don't think it would do much harm to move "initialized = 0" down, although it's impossible to get truly concerned about code doing imports in del when the interpreter is tearing itself down. Note that sys exit funcs have already been called, and signals have been disabled, by this time, so there would still be ways for dubious del code to fail.
Anyway, if you want to do this, the XXX comments reproduced above should be changed too (e.g., deleted).
Assigning to Neal, so that he can get practice following his new "no changes without a test case" guideline :-)
Author: Mark Lawrence (BreamoreBoy) *
Date: 2010-08-22 01:11
Is this still valid?
Author: STINNER Victor (vstinner) *
Date: 2020-05-15 00:49
No activity since 2006, I close the issue as out of date.
History
Date
User
Action
Args
2022-04-11 14:56:13
admin
set
github: 42505
2020-05-15 00:49:42
vstinner
set
status: open -> closed
nosy: + vstinner
messages: +
resolution: out of date
stage: test needed -> resolved
2019-12-20 23:07:40
eric.snow
set
nosy: + eric.snow
2014-02-03 19:47:44
BreamoreBoy
set
nosy: - BreamoreBoy
2010-08-22 01:11:25
BreamoreBoy
set
nosy: + BreamoreBoy
messages: +
2009-03-20 22:59:04
ajaksu2
set
title: Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized -> Fatal Python error: Interpreter not initialized
stage: test needed
type: behavior
versions: + Python 2.6, - Python 2.4
2005-10-20 05:22:34
ajmitch
create