Some time ago a user opened an issue in our bug tracker. In his logs he noticed an exception raised by the MongoDB Ruby driver:

`synchronize': can't be called from trap context (ThreadError)

From the logs, we could see that the exception was raised when calling synchronize on a mutex inside the finalizer. However, the exception says that synchronize can’t be called from a “trap context”. What is that, and how is it related to our finalizers?

Finalizer is a proc that will be called when a specific object is about to be destroyed by garbage collection. In the MongoDB Ruby driver, we use finalizers to close unused cursors. A cursor is returned in response to a query and can be iterated to retrieve results. Cursors are a very convenient mechanism; however, cursors are server-side objects, and every cursor consumes server memory. Therefore, it is a good idea to let the server know if a cursor is unused so that the resources are released. So, if an object that represents a cursor is destroyed, the cursor is definitely unused and can be closed.

Below is a very simplified example of how this can be done:

class Cursor
  def self.finalize(cursor_id, database, collection)
    proc do
      puts "Killing cursor #{cursor_id} on #{database}.#{collection}"
      # Execute command to close cursor
    end
  end

  def initialize(database, collection)
    # Initialize the cursor
    ObjectSpace.define_finalizer(
      self,
      self.class.finalize(@id, @database, @collection)
    )
  end
end

We can ask Ruby to do the garbage collection by calling GC.start, so we can test the code.

5.times { Cursor.new('database', 'collection') }
GC.start

# => Killing cursor 258 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 938 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 791 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 705 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 114 on database.collection

So far so good. Of course, this solution is far from ideal. Here we send a command to the server every time the finalizer is called. First, this will block the main thread. Further, it will issue one command per cursor, which is not ideal. We can also reduce the number of commands we send by killing all cursors for a collection in one command. So, we came up with an idea for the cursor reaper — a background thread that wakes up from time to time and kills unused cursors:

class CursorReaper
  Task = Struct.new(:id, :database, :collection)

  def initialize
    @mutex = Mutex.new
    @tasks = []
  end

  def schedule(id, database, collection)
    @mutex.synchronize do
      @tasks << Task.new(id, database, collection)
    end
  end

  def kill_cursors
    @mutex.synchronize do
      while task = @tasks.pop
        puts "Killing cursor #{task.id} on #{task.database}.#{task.collection}"
        # Group cursors per collection
      end
    end
    # Execute commands to close cursors
  end
end

class Cursor
  def self.finalize(id, database, collection, reaper)
    proc do
      reaper.schedule(id, database, collection)
    end
  end

  def initialize(database, collection, reaper)
    # Initialize the cursor
    ObjectSpace.define_finalizer(
      self,
      self.class.finalize(@id, @database, @collection, reaper)
    )
  end
end

Note that there is a mutex in the CursorReaper class. The kill_cursors method of the reaper will be called in a background thread, hence the locking. Let’s test it:

reaper = CursorReaper.new
reaper_thread = Thread.new do
  loop do
    sleep(1)
    reaper.kill_cursors
  end
end

5.times { Cursor.new('database', 'collection', reaper) }
GC.start
reaper_thread.join

# => Killing cursor 205 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 847 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 284 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 609 on database.collection
# => Killing cursor 485 on database.collection

Still, no error, even though the latter example calls synchronize inside the finalizer. What is the difference between the example and the real-world situation? In the example, we trigger garbage collection manually. Normally this is triggered by Ruby itself. What if we create so many objects that Ruby actually starts the GC?

reaper = CursorReaper.new
reaper_thread = Thread.new do
  loop do
    sleep(1)
    reaper.kill_cursors
  end
end
populator_thread = Thread.new do
  loop do
    5000.times { Cursor.new('database', 'collection', reaper) }
    sleep(1)
  end
end
[reaper_thread, populator_thread].map(&:join)

Yes, this code actually reproduces the problem, and the exception is raised! So, it looks like finalizers are executed inside a signal trap. Therefore, to fix the problem we should just follow the documentation and not use operations that are not allowed inside the traps. In our case with the cursor reaper, we got rid of mutexes in finalizers by using a queue data structure, and the bug was fixed.

We Need to Go Deeper

Even though the problem was gone, I decided to find out whether finalizers are really executed inside a signal trap. I though maybe Ruby VM uses signals internally to trigger garbage collection. I could not find any mentions about such a usage of signals, so I had to read Ruby source code. It tuned out to be fun, and the outcome was very unexpected!

I started by finding where the error “can’t be called from trap context” is raised. I found it in do_mutex_lock function inside thread_sync.c file:

/* When running trap handler */
if (!FL_TEST_RAW(self, MUTEX_ALLOW_TRAP) &&
  th->ec->interrupt_mask & TRAP_INTERRUPT_MASK) {
  rb_raise(rb_eThreadError, "can't be called from trap context");
}

So, what is actually verified is whether the execution context has a TRAP_INTERRUPT_MASK flag set. This flag is set in three functions: rb_postponed_job_flush in vm_trace.c, rb_threadptr_execute_interrupts in thread.c, and signal_exec in signal.c. After some debugging, I found out that in our case the flag is set in the rb_postponed_job_flush function. Actually, this is also confirmed by this comment for the rb_gc function in gc.h:

* Finalisers are deferred until we can handle interrupts. See * `rb_postponed_job_flush` in vm_trace.c.

Alright, now it is more or less clear what is going on. Finalizers are not executed immediately after an object is “garbage collected”. Instead, a postponed job is created and scheduled. Such jobs are executed in the rb_postponed_job_flush function. This function sets the TRAP_INTERRUPT_MASK flag, which is later checked by do_mutex_lock. Hence the error. I even found the commit that introduces the current behavior, and a bug that was fixed by this commit. It looks like the Ruby team wanted to make sure that finalizers are never interrupted by a signal; as a side effect, code inside finalizers is treated as code inside a signal trap.

To summarize, finalizers are not executed inside a signal trap; however, Ruby applies the same restrictions to signal traps and finalizers. This is not documented anywhere; further, the exception raised is a bit misleading. Be careful!

P.S. It is still unclear why we did not see the exception when we trigger the garbage collection manually. I wasn’t able to find the answer; maybe this is a topic for my next article.