IV72640: JAVA JIT CRASH WHEN RUNNING JAVA 7.1 ON A POWER8 CPU

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• ERROR DESCRIPTION
  SIGSEGV but other symptoms are possible
  
  
  In the case we have seen so far, the problem resulted in a crash
  executing in jitCheckCast().
  
  The problem only applies to Java 7.1 and only when
  running on a POWER8 CPU.
  

Local fix

• The only way to avoid the problem is to disable the
  compilation of effected methods, but in general it's not easy to
  know what method(s) were effected without low-level core file
  analysis. The only other work-around would be to disable the JIT
  (-Xint) but that would come with a massive performance
  penalty.
  

Problem summary

• The JIT attempts to use transactional memory to optimize the use
  of java/util/concurrent/ConcurrentLinkedQueue.poll() but it can
  return a bad value when the queue is empty.
  .
  This APAR will be fixed in the following Java Releases:
     7 R1 SR1       (7.1.1.0)
  .
  Contact your IBM Product's Service Team for these Service
  Refreshes and Fix Packs.
  For those running stand-alone, information about the Service
  Refreshes and Fix Packs can be found at:
             https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/
  

Problem conclusion

• The JIT was modified so that a proper NULL value is returned in
  the case of an empty queue.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  JIT

• Fixed component ID

  620700124

Applicable component levels

• R260 PSY

     UP