[gentoo-user] qtwebkit problem (solved)

[Philip Webb]

In order to update to the latest stable PyQt5-5.13.2 ,
I was required to remerge qtwebkit-5.212.0_pre20190629 ;
this normally takes  30 min  & can make its cache in memory.

Towards the end of the latter compile, I suddenly found myself
looking at a completely dark screen : the whole system had crashed.
I pressed the Start button on the box & tried the emerge again,
watching what was going on during the compile,
while monitoring 'free' on another tab & activity on Gkrellm.
Early in the compile, it briefly used most of swap :
I have  8 GB  memory +  8 GB  swap partition
& it was using  c 4,5 GB  swap ; this dropped again fairly quickly.
All  8  processors were running at  100 %  or nearly
& the CPU temperature was  70 C  with fans whining a bit.
Then at the same point in the compile, poof ! -- another hard crash.

Nothing at all in 'syslog' ; 'kern.log' shows :

  Jan 4 13:23:56 localhost kernel: IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enp2s0: link becomes ready
  Jan 4 14:09:33 localhost kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.
  Jan 4 14:09:33 localhost kernel: Kernel log daemon terminating.
< this wb the crash, then restart >
  Jan 4 14:09:55 localhost kernel: klogd 1.5.1, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
  Jan 4 14:09:55 localhost kernel: Inspecting /usr/src/linux/System.map
  Jan 4 14:09:55 localhost kernel: Cannot find map file.
  Jan 4 14:09:55 localhost kernel: Loaded 30475 symbols from 1 module.
  Jan 4 14:09:55 localhost kernel: Linux version 4.14.52-gentoo (root@localhost) (gcc version 7.3.0 (Gentoo 7.3.0-r3 p1.4)) #5 SMP Sun Aug 19 23:59:47 EDT 201

which isn't very helpful.  What evidence there was suggested
that it had run out of swap, causing the kernel to panic,
so I added 'dev-qt/qtwebkit notmpfs.conf' to  /etc/portage/package.env ,
tried the emerge again & it went thro' successfully in  29 min .

If you try to emerge LO or FF using a tmpfs , Portage tells you not to.
Rust is the 4th entry in  package.env :
I forget whether Portage/other warned me or I found out the hard way.

It's also a puzzle why qtwebkit failed on this re-merge
after compiling successfully when previously updated a few months ago.

It's a very long time since my system (on any box) crashed in this manner.

This is FYI, but others might have a few comments.

-- 
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SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
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