Processes don't die when kill command is used/need reboot 1

[PaulFearn]

Does anyone have any useful explanations as to why a process does not die when a kill command is issued ?

As I understand it, it is because the process is waiting on a system call than will never complete. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has had any similar problems and any common causes eg. file system corruption etc.

 

[funkyd]

What kind of kill are you using, a regular kill or "kill -9"? What is the output of the "ps" command for this process?

 

[cbrae]

Do you own the process ? If so one reason that you can't kill it may be because the
process is hung in Device Driver code ... it is trying to physically access a tape drive,
printer or maybe even a disk ... though less likely to be on a disk ... exactly what is
the process doing ? A vendor process ? Your own ?? a script or ???

 

[PaulFearn]

we have tried using various kill flags on the stuck processes including kill -9.

Compaq have provided some patches for Tru64 5.1 and these seem to have done the trick along with Oracle 8.1.7.1 patch.

 

[christos]

Assming everthing else is ok then its a zombie and you cant kill it.
You need to get your developers or vendors to fix their code
you can try patches to the OS too