On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 4:15 AM, Raul Xiong <raulxiong@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The issue happens in such sequence: > ashmem_mmap acquired ashmem_mutex --> ashmem_mutex:shmem_file_setup > called kmem_cache_alloc --> shrink due to low memory --> ashmem_shrink > tries to acquire the same ashmem_mutex -- it blocks here. > > I think this reports the bug clearly. Please have a look. There is no debate about the nature of the bug. Only the fix. My mutex_trylock patch fixes the problem. I prefer that solution. Andrew's suggestion of GFP_ATOMIC won't work as we'd have to propagate that down into shmem and elsewhere. Using PF_MEMALLOC will work. You'd want to define something like: static int set_memalloc(void) { if (current->flags & PF_MEMALLOC) return 0; current->flags |= PF_MEMALLOC; return 1; } static void clear_memalloc(int memalloc) { if (memalloc) current->flags &= ~PF_MEMALLOC; } and then set/clear PF_MEMALLOC around every memory allocation and function that descends into a memory allocation. As said I prefer my solution but if someone wants to put together a patch with this approach, fine by me. Robert -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-next" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html