pmdalinux crash

[test-account-0]

Version: 3.11.2
OS: ubuntu 12.04

What I know is that pmdalinux stops working in it just hangs as a zombie:

pcp      27674  0.3  0.0  51696  2172 ?        Ss   10:46   0:00 /usr/lib/pcp/bin/pmcd
root     27677  9.3  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    10:46   0:08  \_ [pmdalinux] <defunct>

It stops working after being asked by script similar to pcp2graphite (but a nagios one) for most available metrics.
Not sure how to debug it. Logs and strace do not say much. Nothing under gdb, but maybe I'm using it in the wrong way (just db /var/lib/pcp/pmdas/linux/pmdalinux - it exits after a moment).

[test-account-0]

Sorry, it was just timeout. I have just read than pmcd kills agent if it is too slow.

But shouldn't it be restarted after timeout and not just killed?

[fche]

Yeah, there are a couple of mechanisms there for restarting. These aren't perfect.
Ideally, the PMDA should be recoded so it doesn't time out at all during routine operations.

[natoscott]

But shouldn't it be restarted after timeout and not just killed?

I've written a FAQ entry for this topic - http://pcp.io/faq.html#T12 - the first restart mechanism appears to have failed for you here @test-account-0 but the second is more persistent & should give you some relief.