Apache httpd 2.4.49 port will not launch on ElCap

[Bill Cole]

On 2021-09-24 at 16:53:21 UTC-0400 (Fri, 24 Sep 2021 16:53:21 -0400)
Bill Cole <macportsusers-20171215 at billmail.scconsult.com>
is rumored to have said:

> On 2021-09-22 at 16:47:41 UTC-0400 (Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:47:41 +0200)
> Bjarne D Mathiesen <macintosh at mathiesen.info>
> is rumored to have said:
>
>> Bill Cole wrote:
>>> I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this and if anyone has 
>>> a sense of whether this is really a MacPorts-specific problem or if 
>>> it is (as I suspect but have not been able to confirm) a problem 
>>> with httpd.
>>
>> I'm running apache 2.4.49 on
>> * 10.6.8
>> * 10.15.7
>> without any issues
>
> That brackets the problem a bit.
>
> Given the odd failure ("crashed on child side of fork pre-exec" with a 
> segfault) I suspect it is something specific to the platform, e.g. 
> compiler version, shared library versions, etc. and I'm experimenting 
> with rebuilding it in different ways to  see if I can find a way to 
> make it work.
>
> Currently running with '-X' as a workaround (doesn't fork...)

Closing the loop here:

Rebuilding httpd and everything it recursively depends on with clang-10 
on the target system didn't touch the problem. Reverting to .48 didn't 
touch the problem(!) Limping along and waiting for the .51 update 
resolved the problem. I did not test .50, which lasted just a few days. 
I'm not up to analyzing all the flux in the httpd code between those 
versions, but there are enough core and mpm fixes that I'm satisfied 
with vague handwaving about something jostling an optimization in the 
wrong/right place and for 2 minor versions breaking it on one obsolete 
platform.


-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire