JuliaPy / JuliaPy/PythonCall.jl
at_jl_exit sometimes crashes
- Dominant language
- Julia
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- Merged PRs (30d)
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Description
**Affects:** JuliaCall
**Describe the bug**
When running multithreaded julia, python sometimes causes segmentation fault at exit.
**Your system**
Please provide detailed information about your system:
- Ubuntu 25.10
- Julia 1.12.6, Python 3.14.4, PythonCall 0.9.31, JuliaCall 0.9.31
**Additional context**
jl_atexit_hook(0) does three things in sequence:
1. Run user atexit hooks (Base._atexit(0)).
2. Schedule + run ALL registered finalizers (jl_gc_run_all_finalizers).
3. Tear down threads, set jl_gc_disable_counter = 1.
Finalizers are best-effort, and running them during shutdown with multiple threads is probably where the crashes come from. Since the process is exiting, the finalizers don't semantically need to run — they're unsafe and not useful.
I tested that with only `Base._atexit(0), my custom julia `atexit` lambdas are executed
Fixed by https://github.com/JuliaPy/PythonCall.jl/pull/763
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
Research direction
Review jl_atexit_hook(0), Base._atexit(0), and jl_gc_run_all_finalizers to understand the shutdown sequence described in the report. Compare the behavior and available tests with the fix in PythonCall.jl pull request 763; this issue is already marked as fixed there.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- julia, python
- Domain
- backend
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 10/100