What can cause Java to keep running after System.exit()?
- by uckelman
I have a Java program which is being started via ProcessBuilder from another Java program.
System.exit(0) is called from the child program, but for some of our users (on Windows) the java.exe process associated with the child doesn't terminate. The child program has no shutdown hooks, nor does it have a SecurityManager which might stop System.exit() from terminating the VM. I can't reproduce the problem myself on Linux or Windows Vista. So far, the only reports of the problem come from two Windows XP users and one Vista user, using two different JREs (1.6.0_15 and 1.6.0_18), but they're able to reproduce the problem every time.
Can anyone suggest reasons why the JVM would fail to terminate after System.exit(), and then only on some machines?
