Re: git fast-import crashing on big imports

[Ulrich Spoerlein <uqs@FreeBSD.org>]

Yo Jeff, your commit 8261e1f139db3f8aa6f9fd7d98c876cbeb0f927c from Aug
22nd, that changes delta_base_cache to use hashmap.h is the culprit for
git fast-import crashing on large imports.

Please read below, you can find a 55G SVN dump that should show the
problem after a couple of minutes to less than an hour. Please also see
similar issues from 2009 and 2011. This seems to be a rather fragile
part of the code, could you add unit tests that make sure this
regression is not re-introduce again once you fix it? Thanks!

I'm happy to test any patches that you can provide.

Cheers,
Uli

On Do., 2017-01-12 at 09:21:38 +0100, Ulrich Spörlein wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> the FreeBSD svn2git conversion is crashing somewhat
> non-deterministically during its long conversion process. From memory,
> this was not as bad is it is with more recent versions of git (but I
> can't be sure, really).
> 
> I have a dump file that you can grab at
> http://scan.spoerlein.net/pub/freebsd-base.dump.xz (19G, 55G uncompressed)
> that shows this problem after a couple of minutes of runtime. The caveat is
> that for another member of the team on a different machine the crashes are on
> different revisions.
> 
> Googling around I found two previous threads that were discussing
> problems just like this (memory corruption, bad caching, etc)
> 
> https://www.spinics.net/lists/git/msg93598.html  from 2009
> and
> http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/long-fast-import-errors-out-quot-failed-to-apply-delta-quot-td6557884.html
> from 2011
> 
> % git fast-import --stats < ../freebsd-base.dump
> ...
> progress SVN r49318 branch master = :49869
> progress SVN r49319 branch stable/3 = :49870
> progress SVN r49320 branch master = :49871
> error: failed to apply delta
> error: bad offset for revindex
> error: bad offset for revindex
> error: bad offset for revindex
> error: bad offset for revindex
> error: bad offset for revindex
> fatal: Can't load tree b35ae4e9c2a41677e84a3f14bed09f584c3ff25e
> fast-import: dumping crash report to fast_import_crash_29613
> 
> 
> fast-import crash report:
>     fast-import process: 29613
>     parent process     : 29612
>     at 2017-01-11 19:33:37 +0000
> 
> fatal: Can't load tree b35ae4e9c2a41677e84a3f14bed09f584c3ff25e
> 
> 
> git fsck shows a somewhat incomplete pack file (I guess that's expected if the
> process dies mid-stream?)
> 
> % git fsck
> Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done.
> error: failed to apply delta6/614500)
> error: cannot unpack d1d7ee1f81c6767c5e0f75d14d400d7512a85a0f from ./objects/pack/pack-e28fcea43fc221d2ebe92857b484da58bb888237.pack at offset 122654805
> error: failed to apply delta
> error: failed to read delta base object d1d7ee1f81c6767c5e0f75d14d400d7512a85a0f at offset 122654805 from ./objects/pack/pack-e28fcea43fc221d2ebe92857b484da58bb888237.pack
> error: cannot unpack 8523bde63ef34bef725347994fdaec996d756510 from ./objects/pack/pack-e28fcea43fc221d2ebe92857b484da58bb888237.pack at offset 122671596
> error: failed to apply delta0/614500)
> error: failed to read delta base object d1d7ee1f81c6767c5e0f75d14d400d7512a85a0f at offset 122654805 from ./objects/pack/pack-e28fcea43fc221d2ebe92857b484da58bb888237.pack
> ...
> 
> 
> Any comments on whether the original problems from 2009 and 2011 were ever
> fixed and committed?
> 
> Some more facts:
> - git version 2.11.0
> - I don't recall these sorts of crashes with a git from 2-3 years ago
> - adding more checkpoints does help, but not fix the problem, it merely shifts
>   the crashes around to different revisions
> - incremental runs of the conversion *will* complete most of the time, but
>   depending on how often checkpoints are used, I've seen it croak on specific
>   commits and not being able to progress further :(
> 
> Thanks for any pointers or things to try!
> Cheers
> Uli