The only time a NFS share could cause a freeze is when an operation between the client and the server is awaiting completion. This usually happens when network connectivity is lost between them. This doesn't seem likely if you can play movies fine though.

Based on the behaviour you mentioned - this is definitely a NFS related hang. Could you use lsof or strace to see if Amarok is blocked waiting for anything in particular on the share? There could possibly be a file or something else causing the issue.

i've never used those tools, i'll do some google-fu and try to figure that out.

until then, is there any recommendations as to what to do assuming it is an nfs hang? why does an nfs hang not affect clementine? isn't that what the 'dynamic collection' feature is for? to handle a playlist using an nfs share?

The hang is caused by the linux kernel itself. The test way is to look in htop, top or ps - the status of Amarok will be listed as D - meaning blocked on disk.

i tried 'top' on my desktop that I was having issues with and never saw amarok ilsted, despite it running and being unresponsive.

i just fired up my gentoo laptop, installed amarok, and started a scan. this is scanning the same nfs share my desktop uses. sure enough it hangs in the exact same way. top revealed:

Code: Select all

19289 (username)  20   0 66688 7880 5724 D    0  0.2   0:01.79 amarokcollectio

i do notice the "D", which you mentioned means "blocked on disk". where do i go from here?

my desktop uses kernel 3.4.9 while my laptop uses kernel 3.5.2 if that matters

i performed "lsof | grep Music" to see if anything was hanging while amarok does its scan. when i perform that command while it scans i see the file it is currently scanning, however, when i perform that command after amarok hangs there are no results.

"strace amarok" results in a lot of code, ending in:

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sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\1\0\1\23\0\0\0\2\0\0\0\177\0\0\0\1\1o\0\25\0\0\0/org/fre"..., 144}, {"\16\0\0\0org.kde.amarok\0", 19}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 163
poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
recvmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(1)=[{"l\2\1\1\4\0\0\0\3\0\0\0=\0\0\0\6\1s\0\6\0\0\0:1.346\0\0"..., 2048}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC}, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = 84
recvmsg(3, 0x7fffaff2db50, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\1\0\1+\0\0\0\3\0\0\0\202\0\0\0\1\1o\0\20\0\0\0/MainApp"..., 152}, {"\0\0\0\0#\0\0\0\0\0\0\17/home/earquilla\0\0\0\1\377"..., 43}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 195
poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 1, -1)    = ? ERESTART_RESTARTBLOCK (Interrupted by signal)
--- SIGCHLD {si_signo=SIGCHLD, si_code=CLD_EXITED, si_pid=7371, si_status=0, si_utime=0, si_stime=0} ---
restart_syscall(<... resuming interrupted call ...>


where it hangs

do i need to give more information? what can i do from here?

Yes, D means blocked on disk (or any input/output in general really - which could be it's communication with Amarok itself even).
Based upon that strace output I believe it may either be in the process of attempting to close - or one of it's children may be in the process of doing so.

The full name of "amarokcollectio" is "amarokcollectionscanner" I believe - which is the Collection Scanner.
Unfortunately, it will need to be a developer themselves who interprets that strace output to determine where exactly it is hanging.

bcooksley wrote:Unfortunately, it will need to be a developer themselves who interprets that strace output to determine where exactly it is hanging.

Then this needs to be reported as a bug with all that output information pasted directly in the comment field.