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Android Emulator host SIGSEGV in gfxstream GL fence wait path (EmulatedEglFenceSync / tcmalloc)

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#191 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
48/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
cpp

Research direction

Start with host/frame_buffer.cpp, host/sync_thread.cpp, host/gl/emulated_egl_fence_sync.cpp, and host/render_control.cpp to trace fence ownership from queueing through wait and destruction. Use the reported stack trace and, if available, the Apport report or core dump to determine whether the lifetime race explains the SIGSEGV. Done means the cause is established and the fence lifetime behavior is corrected and validated.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Environment
  • Emulator 37.1.11.0 (build 15917651)
  • Debian sid, KDE Wayland, Linux 7.2-amd64
  • Pixel_9a, x86_64, 6144 MB RAM
  • android-CinnamonBun/google_apis_ps16k/x86_64
  • GPU: auto

Launch command:

qemu-system-x86_64 @Pixel_9a -show-kernel -no-snapshot-load -writable-system
Crash

September 10, 2026, 17:47:15 UTC+8.

SIGSEGV / SEGV_MAPERR

tcmalloc::SLL_Next
tcmalloc::SLL_PopRange
tcmalloc::ThreadCache::FreeList::PopRange
tcmalloc::ThreadCache::ReleaseToCentralCache
tcmalloc::ThreadCache::ListTooLong
cfree
gfxstream::host::gl::EmulatedEglFenceSync::wait
...
gfxstream::host::SyncThread::doSyncThreadCmd

There also appears to be a fence lifetime race in the current source. FrameBuffer queues a raw fence pointer. The worker's registry lookup doesn't retain a reference, while wait() calls incRef() only afterward. A concurrent destroy could release the last reference between those two operations.

Not sure if this caused the crash. No reliable reproducer yet.

I have the original Apport report and core dump (~2 GB), available for further debugging. I haven't uploaded the raw dump publicly because it contains process memory.

Dominant language
C++
Stars
57
Forks
38
Avg merge
3d 6h
Merged PRs (30d)
6

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