[LUCENE-1200] IndexWriter.addIndexes* can deadlock in rare cases

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.4
• Fix Version/s: 2.3.2, 2.4
• Component/s: core/index
• Lucene Fields: New
• Assignee: Michael McCandless
• Reporter: Michael McCandless
• Created: 04/Mar/08 10:14
• Updated: 28/Aug/22 11:47
• Resolved: 06/Mar/08 11:52

Description

In somewhat rare cases it's possible for addIndexes to deadlock
because it is a synchronized method.

Normally the merges that are necessary for addIndexes are done
serially (with the primary thread) because they involve segments from
an external directory. However, if mergeFactor of these merges
complete then a merge becomes necessary for the merged segments, which
are not external, and so it can run in the background. If too many BG
threads need to run (currently > 4) then the "pause primary thread"
approach adopted in LUCENE-1164 will deadlock, because the addIndexes
method is holding a lock on IndexWriter.

This was appearing as a intermittant deadlock in the
TestIndexWriterMerging test case.

This issue is not present in 2.3 (it was caused by LUCENE-1164).

The solution is to shrink the scope of synchronization: don't
synchronize on the whole method & wrap synchronized(this) in the right
places inside the methods.