GeezerVison

Summary

In debug mode, Loop._asyncgen_finalizer_hook can segfault the interpreter. The hook is invoked by the GC from a dealloc — which can happen while CPython is mid-way through clearing the current interpreter frame — and the call_soon_threadsafe it performs creates a Handle whose debug source-traceback capture calls sys._getframe(), dereferencing the half-cleared frame.

We hit this in production on CPython 3.13.14 with uvloop 0.22.1: enabling loop.set_debug(True) on a Starlette/FastAPI service with streaming request bodies (request.stream() is an async generator; under disconnect/cancellation churn they are GC'd constantly) produced worker SIGSEGVs within seconds. Reproduces on 3.13.14 and 3.14.4, x86_64 and aarch64. It appears to be the same underlying weakness as #715 (there, on 3.14, the capture path surfaces a non-frame object to traceback.walk_stack).

Symbolized backtrace (uvloop built -O0 -g3, CPython 3.13.14)

#3  ?? libpython3.13 (sys._getframe impl; SEGV reading frame->frame_obj)
#4  ?? libpython3.13
#5  __pyx_f_6uvloop_4loop_extract_stack ()                    at cbhandles.pyx (extract_stack)
#6  __pyx_f_6uvloop_4loop_6Handle__set_loop ()                at cbhandles.pyx (Handle._set_loop)
#7  __pyx_f_6uvloop_4loop_new_Handle ()
#8  __pyx_pf_6uvloop_4loop_4Loop_14call_soon_threadsafe ()
#11 __pyx_pf_6uvloop_4loop_4Loop_140_asyncgen_finalizer_hook ()
#14 PyObject_CallOneArg
#16 PyObject_CallFinalizerFromDealloc          <- asyncgen GC'd from a dealloc...
#19 _PyEval_FrameClearAndPop                   <- ...while this frame is being cleared
#20 _PyEval_EvalFrameDefault

A production core dump shows the same failure from the release wheel: SIGSEGV (SEGV_MAPERR) inside sys._getframe incref'ing frame->frame_obj containing a torn value (0x3000000010).

Fix

• _asyncgen_finalizer_hook sets a per-thread flag (the hook can run on any thread) so extract_stack() skips frame introspection for the handle it creates. The source traceback of a GC point is arbitrary victim code anyway, so nothing meaningful is lost.
• extract_stack() additionally tolerates AttributeError/ValueError/TypeError from StackSummary.extract/walk_stack, returning None instead of propagating — this also addresses the 3.14 failure mode reported in uvloop debug mode crashes on Python 3.14 during async generator finalization (traceback.walk_stack sees non-frame object) #715 (_asyncio.TaskStepMethWrapper lacking f_back).

Reproducer

Crashes in <15 s unpatched (verified end-to-end from a clean directory containing only these files: 271 Fatal Python error lines in a 60 s window, current PyPI starlette/fastapi/uvicorn); clean with this fix (10 min, ~259k streamed requests, verified on 3.13.14 aarch64 and x86_64).

# app.py — needs: pip install uvicorn starlette fastapi httpx uvloop
from fastapi import FastAPI, Request
from starlette.middleware.base import BaseHTTPMiddleware

app = FastAPI()

class Passthrough(BaseHTTPMiddleware):
    async def dispatch(self, request, call_next):
        return await call_next(request)

app.add_middleware(Passthrough)
app.add_middleware(Passthrough)

@app.post("/upload")
async def upload(request: Request) -> dict:
    total = 0
    async for chunk in request.stream():
        total += len(chunk)
    return {"received": total}

# loop_factory.py
import uvloop
def new_event_loop():
    loop = uvloop.new_event_loop()
    loop.set_debug(True)          # <- the trigger
    return loop

# load.py — 32 concurrent chunked uploads in a loop
import asyncio, httpx

async def body():
    for _ in range(200):
        yield b"x" * 2048

async def worker(client):
    while True:
        try:
            await client.post("http://localhost:8000/upload", content=body())
        except Exception:
            await asyncio.sleep(0.05)

async def main():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient(timeout=30) as c:
        await asyncio.gather(*[worker(c) for _ in range(32)])

asyncio.run(main())

docker run --rm -v $PWD:/r python:3.13.14-slim sh -c '
  pip install -q uvloop==0.22.1 uvicorn starlette fastapi httpx httptools
  cd /r
  PYTHONFAULTHANDLER=1 uvicorn app:app --workers 4 --port 8000 \
    --loop loop_factory:new_event_loop --http httptools &
  sleep 8
  python load.py &
  sleep 60
  # -> "Fatal Python error: Segmentation fault" within ~15s of load starting
'

Performance

Stock = master merge base (e8efea4), patched = this branch (including the save/restore hook); both built from the same tree with identical flags (aarch64, CPython 3.13.14, best-of-3):

Non-debug hot paths are untouched by construction (extract_stack is only reachable under loop._debug); the only non-debug cost is the thread-local save/set/restore per GC'd async generator, on a path whose real cost is dominated by uv_async_send plus the subsequently scheduled create_task/aclose().

Behavior change

In debug mode, the handle scheduling agen.aclose() from the finalizer hook no longer carries _source_traceback. Previously it captured the stack of whichever code happened to be running when GC fired — misleading rather than useful. Task-level debug tracebacks (create_task runs later in normal loop context) and firstiter capture are unaffected.

Validated with the reproducer plus targeted checks (normal handles still get _source_traceback in debug mode; asyncgen finalizer path executes cleanly); relying on CI for the full test matrix.