511394 - investigate removing python and on device tools for maemo unittest runs

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Release Engineering :: General, defect)

Description

[Joel Maher ( :jmaher ) (UTC -8)]

with the work we are doing on windows mobile to run unit tests, we have found that removing python from the device has been the only way to get stability.  I have ran unittests for >1 week on my windows mobile device and rebooted it 3 times.  

I suspect it is a memory issue where we run low on memory.  This got me thinking about the maemo unittests.  I know that we use python for the test harness and the twisted framework to communicate with the device.  I also know that Fennec runs out of memory and crashes without swap enabled.  I suspect we are running into issues with swap or OOM with all the python and Fennec consumption.

Another technique we use is to run the web server (for mochitests and soon reftest) on a remote machine to server all data to the client.  The reduces the file i/o on the device.

Comment 1

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

Certainly a possibility.

This is likely to affect perf numbers if network and an external web server's responsiveness are thrown into the mix. I don't have numbers on how much this will affect things, however, so don't make that a blocker if it really is a big stability gain.

Comment 2

[alice nodelman [:alice] [:anode]]

Futuring till we have time to do proper investigation.

Comment 3

[Chris Cooper [:coop] (he/him)]

Moving closed Future bugs into Release Engineering in preparation for removing the Future component.