Processes are not being properly terminated

[lewis6991]

Ok so this issue is a tricky one I've been debugging for a few hours and relates closely to https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/24567

Problem

So basically today I noticed my machine tanking whilst working on a python project setup to run pylint with nvim-lint. After running ps x I noticed there were 100's of zombie pylint processes.

I debugged lua/lint.lua and found nothing wrong with the logic so I dug deeper.

What I found can be illustrated with:

• create a script called test.sh with the contents:

  #!/bin/bash
  sleep 1000

• chmod +x test.sh
• ./test.sh
• switch to another terminal
• ps x should show something like

  ...
  90794 pts/30   S+     0:00 /bin/bash ./test.sh
  90795 pts/30   S+     0:00 sleep 1000
  ...

• kill -15 90794 (kill -9 90794 does the same thing)
• ps x still shows:

  ...
  90795 pts/30   S+     0:00 sleep 1000
  ...

So basically running sigterm on a pid of a running script doesn't kill any of its subprocesses.

And this is exactly what was happening with nvim-lint and pylint since pylint is implemented as a python script with the contents:

#!/devtools/homebrew/opt/python@3.11/bin/python3.11
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import re
import sys
from pylint import run_pylint
if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(run_pylint())

Possible solutions

Launching the process detached = true and switching sigterm to sigkill will resolve this, however sigkill is quite aggressive.

So additionally, I propose we first issue sigint and then set up a timer until the process is closed. If it isn't closed by a certain duration, then hit it with a sigkill.