gcc hangs even on simple compile tasks

[Brian Inglis]

On 2026-03-06 17:29, Annihilannic via Cygwin wrote:
> On 07/03/2026 09:37, Dick Pierce via Cygwin wrote:
>> Starting the end of last week, gcc has started behaving badly. Whether I invoke
>> it from a makefile or directly from bash, almost ALL of the timer, it hangs
>> forever, and Task Manager shows cc1 as "running", but consuming no CPU as
>> far as I can tell. If I kill it through task manager, the prompt returns
>> in bash (or make dies with an "interrupted" error.

>> But I'm stumped.

> Smells like a hardware problem to me - I'd suggest testing it thoroughly with 
> memtest86 or similar.
> 
> Also run it through `strace -f gcc -o hello.exe hello.c` a few times and see if 
> it's sticking in the same spot every time (which would indicate software)?

Never blame hardware until you have eliminated the likelihood of BLODA (Big List 
Of Dodgy Apps <https://www.cygwin.com/acronyms/#BLODA>: FAQ 4.44. What 
applications have been found to interfere with Cygwin? 
<https://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda>): poorly written employee 
monitoring and control software, often marketed as "End Point Protection", 
"Security", or AV products, which can not deal with, and must bypass interfering 
with emulators, like Cygwin or Git for Windows MSYS2.

Export CYGWIN=detect_bloda (BLODA detection code 
<https://cygwin.com/legacy-ml/cygwin/2012-02/msg00797.html>) and/or run gcc 
under strace 'strace -o gcc.strace gcc -o hello hello.c' to see if there are any 
non-Cygwin and non-Windows (may still be installed under /Windows/Systems32/) 
DLLs loaded.

If you can, bypass products interfering with Cygwin programs under its 
<CYGWIN_ROOT>, or <CYGWIN_ROOT>/*bin/..., <CYGWIN_ROOT>/lib/..., 
<CYGWIN_ROOT>/libexec/... paths.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher  but when there is no more to cut
                                 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry