[CentOS] CentOS 5 - problem with kernel/process: task blocked for more than 120 seconds.

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Steve Thompson wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2012, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>
>> Steve Thompson wrote:
>>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2012, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>>
>>>> Been seeing that on 6.2, also, though I've not noticed them locking up
>>>> (the ones that have were in a cluster, and someone could have hosed
>>>> memory). It got less with the latest kernel, but I'm still seeing them
>>>> occasionally.
>>>
>>> This is most likely a problem due to data arriving too quickly for the
>>> VM subsystem to flush dirty pages to disk to keep up; the kernel switches
>>> to synchronous mode when the dirty_ratio percentage of memory pages is
>>> used. You might try upping your dirty_ratio, or reducing it drastically.
>>>
>> But mine are *not* VMs.
>
> VM = Virtual Memory.

Sorry, VM (virtual memory) is *so* different than VM (virtual machine),
and in such a different context, dunno how I could have confused the
two.... <g>

I'll try that, though IIRC, I've seen blocked tasks with someone running
emacs.

        mark