Zombie process in xfce elyssa beta

[Steely]

Hi

Wondering if anyone else running the current beta is encountering the same problem. I posted info on it under the beta announcement.

From my previous post :

Overall the beta is working great. Applied all updates for levels 1 through 3 today and have 1 zombie process ( even after restart and full shutdown ). The zombie process shows when using top from the terminal and as can be expected the kill -9 with the pid cannot find the process. When running idle the cpu will spike to 15 to 20 % every 5 to 10 seconds.

Just did a clean install to see if the problem originated before the updates and ran ps aux

root 7944 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 15:21 0:00 [sh] <defunct>

Using the ps -Af command I was able to determine the child process ( zombie ) parent ppid belongs to /usr/bin/python /opt/wicd/daemon

I have looked up bugs with wicd in ubuntu launchpad and it shows that there are issues with wicd and a zombie process that shows as [ sh ] defunct. I am not sure but from what I was able to find it refers to daemon.py . My internet connection is working good but whenever wicd polls the network status every 5 seconds or so it causes my screen to flicker everytime it does that and it gets hard on the eyes after a while. Also whenever I tried to open the wicd configuration screen it would cause my cpu to max out. I am on a wired connection and it seems to be looking for a wireless connection.

You can check to see if the zombie process is on your installation by running the top command from terminal.

Dale

[merlwiz79]

I don't think I ever had any problems with wicd.(I'll check on my install)
If you aren't using it for wireless you don't need it running.
Just go to the menu and open Autostared Applications to uncheck wicd.
This will stop it from starting the next time you boot.

[Steely]

Hi

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try ( I think it was still there even if I disabled wicd from startup ). Will let you know if it persists.

Dale

[merlwiz79]

Hi

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try ( I think it was still there even if I disabled wicd from startup ). Will let you know if it persists.

Dale

Also disable the Automatically reconnect on connection loss.
Wicd 1.5.0 is almost released and is suppose to work better than 1.4.2 that's installed.
You can download the unstable from https://sourceforge.net/project/showfil ... _id=616055
If you want to get the update when it's released as stable you need to enable the wicd repo in Synaptic.

[Steely]

Thank you for the assistance on this issue.

I did a clean install and disabled wicd and have also disabled auto reconnect. The zombie process still persists but it was probably not the source of the spiking which I think was wicd polling for a wireless connection. When shutting down or restarting I get the message stopping all daemons and then it attempts to start wicd and after a few seconds it will progress to the splash. Everything else appears to be stable.

I will keep an eye out for the wicd update. Launchpad does show some issues with wicd and hopefully those will be fixed in 1.5. I would grab the unstable version but will wait it out seeing that this version of xfce is a beta rc and not the final. No need to restart a fire after you just finish putting it out

Thanks Again

Dale

[merlwiz79]

I uninstalled wicd-autostart-plugin and wicd.
Then installed the unstable release 1.5.0 and I have no zombie processes.
Looks like it has gotten fixed.