gpg.exe sometimes hangs solidly under Win2K

[gnupg.org at salvisberg.com]

Email to submit at bugs.guug.de bounces, so I'll try my luck here:


Package: gnupg
Version: 1.4.3

I've started to use GPG a few weeks ago, and I found that 1.4.2.1 hung
about 1 out of  10 times on my Win2K SP4. I just installed 1.4.3, and it
hangs again after a few runs. This time I tried to run

   gpg --list-key <string>

and it replied

   gpg: checking the trustdb

and hangs now.

When it hangs, then I can't even kill it. A first kill attempt in
SysInternals Process Explorer is ignored, and any subsequent attempts
result in "Error terminating process: Access is denied." I can't even
shut down Windows anymore, because Windows is unable to terminate the
process, and I have to use the power switch.

When one instance of gpg.exe hangs, then it becomes mostly unusable.
Trivial commands like --version still work in another console window,
but an attempt to do --list-keys or any other non-trivial command will
hang, too. Here's a ProcExp stack trace of such a hanging instance:

ntoskrnl.exe+0x68e35
SAVRT.SYS+0xac3d
SYMEVENT.SYS+0x8640
ntdll.dll+0x8283
KERNEL32.dll+0x1c225
msvcrt.dll+0x1b8ef
msvcrt.dll+0x1b6a1
gpg.exe+0x61f8c
gpg.exe+0x6333a
gpg.exe+0x622f6
gpg.exe+0x5da7a
gpg.exe+0x5e751
gpg.exe+0x2ba5d
gpg.exe+0x67c9
gpg.exe+0x11d9
gpg.exe+0x1223
KERNEL32.dll+0x28989

The open handles list shows only one interesting item, a semaphore called
\BaseNamedObjects\shell.{210A4BA0-3AEA-1069-A2D9-08002B30309D}

Usually, I run gpg.exe from File Commander for Windows (a Norton
Commander clone), but FC/W is completely transparent, and this has also
happened when running gpg.exe from Enigmail. The stack trace is from an
instance in a plain console window and it's identical to one started
from FC/W.

gpg.conf:
------------------------------
# default-recipient-self
# keyserver random.sks.keyserver.penguin.de
keyserver wwwkeys.ch.pgp.net
default-cert-level 3
keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve include-revoked include-subkeys
include-disabled
export-options export-clean-sigs export-clean-uids
list-options show-sig-expire show-uid-validity
no-mangle-dos-filenames
no-secmem-warning
no-emit-version
no-greeting

# If you installed idea.dll, uncomment the following line
# load-extension Lib\idea
------------------------------

Thanks for looking into it and for providing a great tool!

Hans