[erlang-questions] Strange CPU usage...

[Richard Andrews]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 10:01 AM, G.S.<corticalcomputer@REDACTED> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Has anyone else had a problem where after running their Erlang node for some
> distributed (multi process) program, their CPU (whether single, or dual, or
> quad core), went into 100% use, even after you killed the node completely?
>
> I've tried everything, but after a month of testing different stuff, the
> only consistent part in this 100% cpu usage is that it occurs every once in
> a while after I run my Erlang program, the thing that is strange is that
> even after I kill the node, the cpu is still bogged down. The System Monitor
> (Top), doesn't even show a process that uses 100% of the cpu, yet at the
> same time shows the CPU as being in 100% use.
>
> I can understand if my program goes into some infinite loop, but it persists
> after the node is killed.
>
> Any suggestions?
> -Gene
> p.s. I'm on linux, Debian.
>

If it is not attributed to a process in top then it will probably be
iowait on a disk. Are you running a database or other software that
might do large writes to disk from time to time?