Re: [Condor-users] Explaining the Claimed + Idle state

[Colin Stolley <stolley@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ian,

Can you give an estimate of the number of shadows that are running at 
any given time on this box?

Depending on the system's memory configuration, processor speed, and 
non-condor load, the schedd can fall behind when spawning shadows, 
causing this type of thing to happen. Depending on the nature of your 
jobs, there are ways to push the schedd harder, but that is a whole 
separate topic.

There is also a registry setting that can affect the number of shadows 
your schedd can spawn based on Desktop Heap. The default value for 
Desktop Heap on windows is 512k. Brooklin Gore at Micron has found that 
60 shadows consume about 256k of Desktop Heap. Therefore if you're 
trying to run much over 100 shadows, they'll instantly crash before they 
can do anything. The solution is to modify the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session 
Manager\SubSystems\Windows

The third SharedSection value controls the desktop heap. You can try, 
say 1024, and see if things improve. You can read more about this 
problem here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q184802/

Colin