processes stuck in D-state are kernel bugs. if you''re not using any proprietary drivers, linux-kernel might want to hear about it. Make sure you''re running the last kernel first, though.

actually, you should probably go through your vendor instead. file a bug.

Processes stuck in the D state are not (necessarily) kernel bugs.

If there is a device, which is not providing data, and a process needs it, it will stay in the D state until it''s there. This applies to most devices, with the exception of certain network filesystems, in which case there are timeouts (only if NFS is mounted soft).

The reason for this is, you can''t just "Abort/Retry/Fail" on an operating system which supports virtual memory; the instruction the processor is running could be trying to read out of IO which has failed - in which case it had better retry until it succeeds, or crash the process.

Mark