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RipGrep musl binaries occasionally segfault during very-large searches

x86_64-unknown-linux-musl binaries occasionally segfault during very-large searches · Issue #3494 · BurntSushi/ripgrep

github.com

August 1, 2026

3 min read

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61/100

Summary

x86_64-unknown-linux-musl binaries of ripgrep version 15.2.0 occasionally experience segmentation faults during very-large searches. The binaries are compiled with features including PCRE2 and SIMD support for various instruction sets.

Key Takeaways

Ripgrep built for x86_64-unknown-linux-musl occasionally crashes with a SIGSEGV error when searching very large trees at high concurrency levels.
The crash is linked to an integrity assertion failure in MUSL's mallocng during a calloc call made from the opendir function.
The bug can be reproduced by running a specific script that generates a large directory tree with approximately 20GiB of data across 1.8 million files.
The issue typically manifests within about a minute on a system with 24 cores and sufficient RAM for the search tree to fit in the kernel's block cache.

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Coverage & discussions

Hacker News · github.com

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Community discussions

Hacker News discussion ↗

Historical count: 5 · 5 saved in sample · Historical sample

Analysis ready

Community Sentiment

Negative

Positives

Some commenters are impressed with the detailed sleuthing behind the bug analysis, even if they find the explanations convoluted — it shows dedication to understanding complex issues.
The mention of switching to mimalloc improving performance by 20x resonates with developers seeking efficiency in multithreaded applications.

Concerns

Reading an AI-generated bug report is a frustrating experience — it feels like it lacks the human touch needed for clarity.
There's a clear sentiment that ripgrep's reliance on musl's default allocator is a major bottleneck, especially for applications that need speed.
Commenters highlight that running ripgrep on HPC clusters can lead to disastrous performance, stressing the need for workflow redesigns.