php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login

go to bug id or search bugs for

Bug #43373 pcntl_fork() causes a fatal error instead of returning -1
Submitted: 2007-11-22 11:57 UTC Modified: 2007-11-27 17:14 UTC
Votes:2
Avg. Score:4.5 ± 0.5
Reproduced:1 of 1 (100.0%)
Same Version:1 (100.0%)
Same OS:0 (0.0%)
From: trot at plotinka dot ru Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: PCNTL related
PHP Version: 5.2.5 OS: Unix
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
Anyone can comment on a bug. Have a simpler test case? Does it work for you on a different platform? Let us know!
Just going to say 'Me too!'? Don't clutter the database with that please !
Your email address:
MUST BE VALID
Solve the problem:
11 + 12 = ?
Subscribe to this entry?

 
 [2007-11-22 11:57 UTC] trot at plotinka dot ru 
Description:
------------
untraceable "Fatal error: pcntl_fork(): Error 35"

P.S.: CLI mode.

Reproduce code:
---------------
$pid = pcntl_fork();

Expected result:
----------------
$pid == -1; // true

Actual result:
--------------
Fatal error: pcntl_fork(): Error 35 in ...

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2007-11-23 08:07 UTC] trot at plotinka dot ru 
ext/pcntl/pcntl.c line 227

delete:
        if (id == -1) {
                php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_ERROR, "Error %d", errno);
        }
 [2007-11-25 17:32 UTC] jani@php.net 
Exactly what are you reporting here? What's the bug?
 [2007-11-26 12:46 UTC] trot at plotinka dot ru 
Fatal error on failure.

But in manual:
"On failure, a -1 will be returned in the parent's context"

http://php.net/pcntl_fork

thx
 [2007-11-26 23:15 UTC] development at domain51 dot com 
I just ran into this issue as well...  I was testing PHP's speed at forking N processes and I hit an issue where the OS wasn't able to fork any more processes.  Instead of getting a -1 response, the code referenced below triggers a fatal error and halts PHP.

In other words, the check on line 227 referenced by trot at plotinka dot ru should be deleted.  "-1" is a valid return value and should not trigger an error any failure is encountered during the fork.
 [2007-11-27 17:14 UTC] iliaa@php.net 
This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved. 		Last updated: Thu Oct 30 09:00:02 2025 UTC