> But I cannot kill the process in the Windows TaskManager or using
TaskKill.

I have no idea what libcurl could possibly do to achieve immortal
status.

I might.... You are describing a process that is 'stuck' in the NT
kernel. This could be due to a kernel level deadlock, or possibly an
uncancellable IRP, or an i/o that will never return without being
cancelled (I'm a bit fuzzy at the moment if the application needs to
explicitly cancel blocked i/o before it can die, or if the O/S will
attempt it on the applications behalf, I think it's the former, but am
not 100% certain). Your Norton Security Suite has kernel components
that are responsible for enforcing whatever it is that that software is
supposed to enforce (see ongoing news about msft 'locking out' 3rd party
security software in Vista). And in this case whatever it is that it is
doing is causing your libcurl using process to remain stuck in the
kernel and thus unkillable. If you had multiple threads in your process
you might notice the thread count goes down when you try to kill it in
task manager, but there will always be at least one thread left.

>Isn't there some tool available that can tell why it can't be killed or

somehow explain what it is doing right now?

Well the 'easy' way is to attach a kernel debugger, reproduce the
problem break into the kernel and see why your applications thread is
stuck.

Tracy Camp
Received on 2006-10-25