Version: (using KDE 4.3.5) OS: FreeBSD Installed from: FreeBSD Ports I think that I observe an issue quite similar to what is described and resolved in Bug 44098. Creation of PDF thumbnails/previews randomly works/fails. I've obtained some FreeBSD ktrace data for this problem: 3453 100510 kdeinit4 CALL wait4(0xd88,0x7fffffffcb3c,<invalid>0,0) 3453 100510 kdeinit4 RET wait4 -1 errno 4 Interrupted system call 3453 100510 kdeinit4 PSIG SIGCHLD caught handler=0x8007ce0b0 mask=0x0 code=0x0 As you can see, waitpid returns with EINTR because of SIGCHLD from a terminating child. POSIX does not prohibit such behavior. I suggest to change the waitpid code in kdegraphics/thumbnailers/ps/gscreator.cpp, so that it loos like the following: int ret; do { ret = waitpid(pid, &status, 0); } while (ret == -1 && errno == EINTR); if (ret != pid || (status != 0 && status != 256)) ok = false; The idea is to ignore spurious EINTR returns. With this change PDF thumbnails/previews are created reliably for me.
SVN commit 1091886 by rkcosta: Ignore spurious EINTR errors in waitpid when creating the PS preview. Patch by Andriy Gapon, thanks! CCMAIL: avg@icyb.net.ua BUG: 226034 M +5 -1 gscreator.cpp WebSVN link: http://websvn.kde.org/?view=rev&revision=1091886
I've also backported it to the 4.4 branch, but Bugzilla didn't receive the commit e-mail.