DigiIO has a funnel lock. Whoa momma!

[fader8]

Hello,
I've been setting up my new G5 Quad, and I'm having an intermittent system startup problem that I'm trying to track down. Pain in the butt.

Anyway, I'm noticing an unusual (at least I think it is) entry in my system log:

Aug 6 12:40:52 localhost kernel[0]: com_digidesign_DigiIO:robe(IOResources)
Aug 6 12:40:52 localhost kernel[0]: com_digidesign_DigiIO::start(IOResources) <1>
Aug 6 12:40:52 localhost kernel[0]: DigiIO has a funnel lock. Whoa momma!
Aug 6 12:40:52 localhost kernel[0]: IOResources: match category DigiIO exists


er... "Whoa momma!"....?

I was thinking if anyone could look at their system log and see if you have this entry too. Maybe it's just normal.

Protools and the 002R seem to work fine, once I get the system up... I think the problem is somehow firewire related as I have an extra FW card in the G5 and one in the Magma chassis. But various combinations of removing hardware hasn't helped. It's strange, intermittent behaviour. Almost always the CD drive ejects right after powerup, then often the CPU fans will accelerate to top speed for about 20 seconds, then it either doesn't start up at all or I get to the spinning gear which sometimes freezes, or not. Then sometimes it starts right up just fine. Man this is irritating. If I could get some consistent behaviour out of this thing I'd feel better.

The really weird thing is that once started, everything works perfectly. At least there's that. Grrrr....
Randall

Quad 2.5 G5, 12.5 gig-o-rama, 2X 500gB SATA + a bucket of ext FW drives, digi002R, RME Digiface + Multiface, Kyma Flame/Capybara, Unitor8+AMT8, Magma PCIe to PCI chassis, 2X UAD-1, Protools LE7.1 w/DV + MP toolkits, Logic 7.2, other stuff...

[The Dubnicks]

Dude - I really don't mean to make light of your situation at all, but the code actually said "Whoa Momma"? I have to admit, that's funny - good to see the programmers have a sense of humor. Anyhow, I have nothing to offer really, except I'd definately run both an up to date version of Disk Warrior and run Apple Hardware Test on Extended Test Loop overnight. Good luck man, and sorry about your troubles.

[DJ Insomaniac]

For some reason, this "Whoa momma!" thing seems familiar. I may have seen this at some point.

Pretty goofy.

[tele_player]

It actually says that, I've seen it.

[voicetalent]

Although I'm not much of a programmer, a bit of research helped explain the funnel_lock function. Note that the following is probably oversimplified and possibly inaccurate.

The BSD subsystem in OSX is preemptive, which means that process threads (program tasks) can be interrupted by other threads. For optimum realtime performance, this is not always a good thing. A software "funnel" forces all these threads into a queue going to the processor. A funnel_lock temporarily allows one thread to pass through the funnel uninterrupted, so it essentially takes top processing priority while the lock is active. Since DigiIO is one of the tasks that doesn't respond well to being interrupted, the startup process enables the funnel_lock function so it can be enabled later as needed by DigiIO.

The funnel_lock function is a normal part of the OSX kernal, and can be found in the source code for Darwin:

Darwin Source Code

"Whoa momma!" is clearly a Johnny Bravo cartoon reference. Another example of programmer humor.

[Digi Engineering]

Guys, this particular "whoa momma!" is not a symptom of a problem. It was a developer note to self. In fact, I don't think we ever shipped code which used the funnel lock, so the message itself is misleading.

Before a product is shipped, we are supposed to remove messages/logs like this. We don't always catch them all.

Whoa momma! (Sorry... I can't stop saying it.)

[Zave]

Hehe...as a student programmer myself, I have to say I find this pretty amusing. Good to see Digi's coders have a sense of humor.

And if you're interesting in seeing more of this kind of stuff, try the following:

In Terminal.app, enter: "cd /Applications/Digidesign/'Pro Tools'/'Pro Tools LE.app'/Contents/MacOS"
and then "strings 'Pro Tools LE'" (careful with the single quotes there).
If you want all that text dumped to a file on your desktop for easier viewing, add " > ~/Desktop/outputfile.txt" to the end of the second command.

This command (strings) outputs all the ascii strings it finds in the exe file, and while most of it is gibberish, some is readable and a few tidbits here and there are pretty funny - among them, such treasures as "I've got the poison!" and "I'm not your monkey boy!"

Kind of interesting to look at all the little comments and things, too (at least for nerds like me). Some of it makes me curious though, such as some sort of command interface (I'm guessing), called "VirtualKey" which is sort of explained about a third of the way down.

Ahh....I love geek humor.


Zev

[DJ Insomaniac]

Digi, don't go changing that code. Nothing like going into console ticked off and seeing something there to lighten the mood.

Kind of reminds me of some of the programs I wrote back in HS computer sciences class.