[Discuss-gnuradio] Virtual memory problem assumably caused by threaded process

[Christian Sokolowski]

 Hi all,

 the receiver of a point-to-point communication system is causing some memory
 trouble.

 rx_graph() architecture:
 usrp.board - some signal processing blocks - packet sink

 Arriving packets are fed to a message_queue. A thread watches this
 queue and arriving packets are proceeded to main().

 Pseudo-code of the receiver:

 class rx_graph (gr.flow_graph):
        def __init__(self, callback):
                gr.flow_graph.__init__(self)
                self.dst_queue = gr.msg_queue(1)
                self._watcher = _queue_watcher_thread (self.dst_queue, callback)

        def configure(self, _k, _RXfreq):
                'all signal processing blocks are connect here...'


 class _queue_watcher_thread(_threading.Thread):
        def __init__(self, rcvd_pktq, callback):
                _threading.Thread.__init__(self)
                self.setDaemon(1)
                self.rcvd_pktq = rcvd_pktq
                self.callback = callback
                self.keep_running = True
                self.start()

        def run(self):
                while self.keep_running:
                        msg = self.rcvd_pktq.delete_head()
                        payload = msg.to_string()

                        if self.callback:
                                self.callback(payload, bits_correct, bits_wrong)

 main():
   def callback(payload, bits_correct, bits_wrong):
     "payload is processed here"


 while True:
    # a new object of rx_graph is created after every 100 transmitted
    # packets in order to perform rate adaptation
    rx = rx_graph(callback) # creates an object of rx_graph
    # receiving modulation and carrier frequency via TCP socket"
    # modulation order and carrier frequency have been separately
    # transmitted with TCP before starting to receive payload packets
    rx.configure( modulation_order, RXfreq )
    rx.start()
            ...now receiving packets...
    rx.stop()
    rx = 0  # <------------ works somehow, but this does not free the
    # memory and stop the thread!?

 The application works as I wish, but some memory is not freed properly.
 For some unknown reason virtual memory usage is continously increasing and
 the python application crashes after exceeding 1.6GB with the following
 error message:

   File "./GA_receiver_ver7.py", line 237, in <module>
     main()
   File "./GA_receiver_ver7.py", line 192, in main
     rx.start()
   File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnuradio/gr/flow_graph.py",
 line 93, in start
     self.scheduler.start ()
   File "/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnuradio/gr/scheduler.py",
 line 57, in start
     thread.start()
   File "/usr/lib/python2.5/threading.py", line 434, in start
     _start_new_thread(self.__bootstrap, ())
 thread.error: can't start new thread
 Exception exceptions.AssertionError: AssertionError('cannot join thread
 before it is started',) in <bound method rx_graph.__del__ of
 <__main__.rx_graph object at 0x82903ec>> ignored


 I wonder if the _queue_watcher_thread is closed each time at the end of the
 while loop in main properly when I set the object rx=0. Do I need to
 consider some memory deallocation issues?

 I greatly appreciate any kind of help.

 The full receiver script can be seen here:
 http://www.mobnets.rwth-aachen.de/~ade/cso/GA_receiver_ver7.py

 Thanks, Chris

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 Christian Sokolowski     Office: +49(0)-240-7575-7043
 RWTH Aachen              FAX:    +49(0)-240-7575-7050
 Wireless Networks Dept
 Kackertstrasse 9         E-mail: address@hidden
 D-52072 Aachen           Web: http://www.mobnets.rwth-aachen.de
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