Re: error 'cannot create thread' doing clone or fetch

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 17, 2011, 11:47 UTC
Message-ID: <20110517114754.GA13176@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTi=p3CbQD_EzJATenGsxz5m3=KLtMA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 05:52:44PM +0930, Jesse Reynolds wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> I have just installed git 1.7.5 on Solaris 9, SPARC, using a package
> from sunfreeware.com. I've created a new repository with 'git init'
> and done a commit. Now I'm trying to set up a shared repository but it
> seems there is some issue preventing git from creating a thread for
> the 'sideband demultiplexer'.
> 
> First trying to do a git fetch --bare locally to create the shared
> repository fails:
> 
> $ git --bare init --shared
> Initialized empty shared Git repository in /pub/lots.git/
> $ git --bare fetch /home/jesse/src/lots master:master
> error: cannot create thread: Unknown error
> fatal: fetch-pack: unable to fork off sideband demultiplexer
> $ Broken Pipe

Weird. The only way that can happen is if pthread_create returned error, and the value it stuffed in errno is not useful ("unknown error"). Offhand, I'd guess maybe something in the package build does not match your environment very well. Can you try building git from source? If the error persists, you could certainly get around it by defining NO_PTHREADS then.

You could also try running it under "truss", though I doubt it is going to turn up anything more useful than "unknown error".

> I've searched the mailing list and online and can't seem to find
> anyone else having this issue. Then again my search skills don't seem
> to be what they once used to be!

I think this is the first we've ever seen this particular issue.

-Peff