With GHC 7.8.1-RC2 I get scavenge_stack: weird activation record found on stack on "cabal install -j"

[adinapoli]

Hello everyone,

sorry if this was reported somewhere else, or if the GHC issue tracker would have been more appropriate.
I know that the dreadful "scavenge_stack" is nothing new, but it's the first time I see it on Mac OS X (I'm on Maverick, OS X 10.9.2).

This is a "stacktrace" of the problem. It seems to happen almost consistently if I try to do a parallel installation:

[hsenv]☁  ~HSENV  cabal install -j snap
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring HUnit-1.2.5.2...
Downloading MonadRandom-0.1.13...
Downloading logict-0.6.0.2...
cabal: internal error: scavenge_stack: weird activation record found on stack: 415597384
    (GHC version 7.8.0.20140228 for x86_64_apple_darwin)
    Please report this as a GHC bug:  http://www.haskell.org/ghc/reportabug
[1]    2328 abort      cabal install -j snap
[hsenv]☁  ~HSENV

The concerning thing is that it doesn't seem to be deterministic. After issuing that command, I have tried again and it worked this time:

[hsenv]☁  ~HSENV  cabal install -j snap
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring HUnit-1.2.5.2...
Downloading MonadRandom-0.1.13...
Configuring SHA-1.6.4...
Downloading logict-0.6.0.2...
Downloading process-1.1.0.2...
[...]

It seems to happen with every package and I have tried to install snap just for the sake of reproducing it.

Thanks!

Alfredo

ps. Cross posted on GHC HQ as well: https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8866#ticket

[23Skidoo]

Well, since this is a GHC bug, I don't think there's anything we can do on the Cabal side.