Progress System Error - Cannot Fork

[eddiej]

Our ERP is Syteline, which written in Progress 9.1C, our DB server is UNIX, running HP-UX. We run a fair amount of batch programs directly on the DB server as well as several Windows clients that interact with the DB.

That being said, for the past several months we have been encountering the following system error in some of our logs:
SYSTEM ERROR: Too many subprocesses, cannot fork. Errno=28. (358). This ony appears in the logs that are generated from processes that are running on the UNIX DB server.

Once this happens, the only thing we can do is re-boot the UNIX box. We can usually go about 2 weeks without having to do a reboot. Also, We sometimes see stray processes (user is root, viewed through the Promon utility) running that don't appear to be part of anything. We've been disconnecting the stray processes in the hope that this will buy us time between re-boots.

I don't know if the 'Fork' issue and the stray process issue are related or not. Prior to about 6 months ago, we never had to re-boot our UNIX box.

Any and all help is appreciated,

-Ed

 

[tamhas]

While this might be too many processes, which you should be able to tell from ps, it also could be running out of swap space. It has been years since I've seen that, but the basic logic is that each new process is reserving a certain amount of swap, even though it isn't using it and when all of the swap space is reserved, no new processes are started.

 

[Flanman]

Hi Ed,

I'm not the best system admin, but here's what I'd try for starters:

Write a script to execute "ps -ef" and capture that into a file with the date & timestamp in the filename. Put that into the crontab to execute several times per day. Over time, you'll have several dozen of these files leading up to when you have to reboot the box. Now, you can view the files in date sequence, and look at the number, nature, and the duration of the processes listed there. Maybe you'll discover a runaway process or some other system hog.

Don't forget to take the crontab call back out before you are buried in these files!

I'd also use the utility "top" (which you may need to download and install) for looking at current processes.