"stuck" state of processes

FROM : Grigory Entin
DATE : Wed Nov 03 14:32:12 2004

Hi,

I've seen some similar questions raised a few years ago, but haven't
been able to find the answer. Probably, something has changed since
that time..

Could somebody shed some light on what are "stuck" processes reported
by Mac OS X "top"? As far as I got it, it's Mach-specific, but I can't
a more detailed "explanation"..

Some background for our particular case:
>>

The problem is that our application is experiencing *very* noticable
slowdowns due to unknown reason for some users, when it accesses a
database on disk (particularly, sqlite DB). On some Macs the operation
completes in 2-3 seconds, on others it takes 2-3 *minutes*. There's
absolutely *no* dependency on hardware specs.

According to "top" in "problematic" cases, there's plenty of free RAM
during the execution and system is 70% idle during the operation,
while our process does take about 5% CPU. And there's one "stuck"
process.

In "normal" cases, our process takes up to 80% CPU and there's no
stuck processes.

I guess the slowdown can be somehow related to stuck process reported
by top.
>>


Thanks for any help in advance..

Regards,
Grigory