x/mobile: fatal error: bulkBarrierPreWrite: unaligned arguments

[champo]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version
go version go1.16.5 darwin/amd64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

go env Output

$ go env
GO111MODULE=""
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/Users/juancivile/Library/Caches/go-build"
GOENV="/Users/juancivile/Library/Application Support/go/env"
GOEXE=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOINSECURE=""
GOMODCACHE="/Users/juancivile/go/pkg/mod"
GONOPROXY=""
GONOSUMDB=""
GOOS="darwin"
GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"
GOROOT="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.16.5/libexec"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.16.5/libexec/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GOVCS=""
GOVERSION="go1.16.5"
GCCGO="gccgo"
AR="ar"
CC="clang"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -arch x86_64 -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/ln/73tvl7md2l7gqpbkzq439dcc0000gn/T/go-build3867799831=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"

What did you do?

I have an iOS project using a go library via gomobile:

• Running on an arm64 device (any modern iPhone)
• Calling a method that takes and returns []byte
• A ton of invocations. This is affecting randomly about 1-2% of users of our app.

The golang code is simple:

type Panicker interface {
	Panic([]byte) ([]byte, error)
}

type PanickerImpl struct {
}

func (p *PanickerImpl) Panic(b []byte) ([]byte, error) {
	return make([]byte, len(b)), nil
}

func Init() {
	debug.SetTraceback("crash")
}

And on swift:

PanickerInit()

let p = PanickerPanickerImpl()
let d = Data(repeating: 1, count: 10)
for _ in 1...10_000_000 {
      let r = try p.panic(d)
      XCTAssertEqual(r.count, d.count)
}

A full working reproduction project is at https://github.com/champo/gomobile_panic

What did you expect to see?

No crash.

What did you see instead?

It sometimes crashes inside bulkBarrierPreWrite:

fatal error: bulkBarrierPreWrite: unaligned arguments

goroutine 17 [running, locked to thread]:
runtime.throw(0x1014aeaa4, 0x28)
	runtime/panic.go:1117 +0x54 fp=0x130582d30 sp=0x130582d00 pc=0x1014373d4
runtime.bulkBarrierPreWrite(0x16f5e483c, 0x130582e68, 0x8)
	runtime/mbitmap.go:554 +0x44c fp=0x130582dd0 sp=0x130582d30 pc=0x101419f0c
runtime.typedmemmove(0x1014e0000, 0x16f5e483c, 0x130582e68)
	runtime/mbarrier.go:161 +0xa4 fp=0x130582e10 sp=0x130582dd0 pc=0x1014190c4
_cgoexp_59f89a9c1f1d_proxypanicker_PanickerImpl_Panic(0x16f5e4824)
	_cgo_gotypes.go:183 +0xe8 fp=0x130582e80 sp=0x130582e10 pc=0x1014a3068
runtime.cgocallbackg1(0x1014a2f80, 0x16f5e4824, 0x0)
	runtime/cgocall.go:292 +0x140 fp=0x130582f40 sp=0x130582e80 pc=0x10140a9e0
runtime.cgocallbackg(0x1014a2f80, 0x16f5e4824, 0x0)
	runtime/cgocall.go:228 +0xb0 fp=0x130582fb0 sp=0x130582f40 pc=0x10140a810
runtime.cgocallback(0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
	runtime/asm_arm64.s:1055 +0x98 fp=0x130582fe0 sp=0x130582fb0 pc=0x1014687f8
runtime.goexit()
	runtime/asm_arm64.s:1130 +0x4 fp=0x130582fe0 sp=0x130582fe0 pc=0x1014688d4

I tried exposing a free function with a similar signature but no crashers there. Removing the paramters or return values seems to avoid the crash too.

[rayvbr]

I've encountered this problem as well in the past, issue started with Go 1.16 (1.15 seems unaffected). In my case I had a function signature func DoSomething(i int32, s string) (string, error). Changing that to func DoSomething(s string, i int32) (string, error) resolved the issue. I never really understood why

[hilariocoelho]

I had the same issue using Go 1.16. Reverted to Go 1.13 and it works fine. Also just affected a few users and couldn't reproduce it consistently.

[marinthiercelin]

I have experienced the same issue using https://github.com/ProtonMail/gopenpgp in an iOS app (with gomobile).
The issue has been reproduced when building the library with golang 1.16, 1.16.5 and 1.16.6.
Building with golang 1.15.14 works fine.

[elagergren-spideroak]

Can consistently repro with 1.17.x on iOS. It occurs when calling into Go from C. The stack frame C sets up for Go is four-byte aligned, which makes it likely that the address of the results aren't properly aligned, and therefore casues typedmemmove to crash. For exampe: _cgoexp_432d4433717a_proxygolib_Client_Query(0x16f8557d4).

I think this is a cmd/cgo problem, not x/mobile. cc: @ianlancetaylor

[elagergren-spideroak]

An update: we patched cmd/cgo with __attribute__((aligned(8))) and it fixes the problem.

[hilariocoelho]

@elagergren-spideroak when should we expect a release that fixes it, do you have any idea?

[elagergren-spideroak]

I am not a member of the Go team, so I am not the person to ask. However, I'm going to submit a CL with the patch to get things started.

[sanderdekoning]

Bump - just ran into this: fatal error: bulkBarrierPreWrite: unaligned arguments

[sanderdekoning]

@elagergren-spideroak just to know if I/we can assist in any way, the current status is what exactly? Thanks for letting us know how you fixed it!

[champo]

@elagergren-spideroak thanks for looking into this! Did you get a chance to make the CL? If you didn't, I'd really appreciate a gist so I can patch locally for the time being. I just got a new batch of ocurrences of this I can't seem to sidestep :(

[elagergren-spideroak]

How we've fixed it for our iOS builds is by replacing

go/src/cmd/cgo/out.go

Line 1005 in 97e740e

fmt.Fprintf(fgcc, "\ttypedef %s %v _cgo_argtype;\n", ctype, p.packedAttribute())

with

fmt.Fprintf(fgcc, "\ttypedef %s %v __attribute__((aligned(8))) _cgo_argtype;\n", ctype, p.packedAttribute())

[champo]

Thanks @elagergren-spideroak! Just tested it out and works great 👌