bug#15983: 24.3; Emacs Not Killing Child Process

[sjm]

I'm using nrepl.el for Clojure development and am having trouble with
residual Java processes when quitting nrepl.el.

The process tree that gets spawned looks like this:

emacs.exe
|_ cmdproxy.exe
   |_ cmd.exe
      |_ java.exe
         |_ java.exe

The problem is that after nrepl-quit is called, only the parent java.exe
process is killed and I'm left with an orphaned java.exe that I have to
kill manually.

The code that does the killing looks like this:

(defun nrepl--close-buffer (buffer)
  "Close the nrepl BUFFER."
  (when (get-buffer-process buffer)
    (delete-process (get-buffer-process buffer)))
  (when (get-buffer buffer)
    (kill-buffer buffer)))

The documentation section "37.5 Deleting Processes" says that child
processes get killed but this doesn't seem to be happening for some reason.

I've spoken with the main developer of nrepl.el and he seems to think it
might be a bug in Emacs.

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt6.1.7601)
 of 2013-03-17 on MARVIN
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.1.7601
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.7) --cflags
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/src
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libpng-dev_1.4.3-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/zlib-dev_1.2.5-2/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/giflib-4.1.4-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/jpeg-6b-4/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/tiff-3.8.2-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/gnutls-3.0.9/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libiconv-1.13.1-1-dev/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libxml2-2.7.8/include/libxml2'

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: ENG
  locale-coding-system: cp1252
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Emacs-Lisp

Minor modes in effect:
  paredit-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  global-rainbow-delimiters-mode: t
  rainbow-delimiters-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  desktop-save-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
M-x n r e <return> <help-echo> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
M-x <right> <return> y C-x o C-x k <return> C-s s m 
t p <return> <down> <home> M-x b u g <right> <right> 
<right> <right> <right> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
r e p o r t - <return> E m a c s SPC n o t SPC k i 
l l i n g SPC c h i l d SPC p r o c e s s <return> 
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> C-x k <return> y e s <return> 
C-x 1 <prior> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <return> 
<S-insert> C-x C-s <home> <next> <prior> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> M-x c u s t o m 
<return> e m a <tab> <tab> <backspace> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> s m 
t <tab> <return> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <next> <prior> q M-x <return> e m a <tab> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
C-g <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <end> <left> 
<left> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> s j 
m @ s j m . i o C-x C-s <home> C-SPC <down> C-w <down> 
<S-insert> C-x C-s <up> <end> C-x C-e M-x <right> <return> 
E m a c s SPC <help-echo> <help-echo> <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <end> 
<C-backspace> <S-insert> <return> C-x k <return> y 
e s <return> C-x 1 M-x <return>

Recent messages:
Checking 70 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/erc...
Checking 48 files in 
c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/emulation...
Checking 147 files in 
c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/emacs-lisp...
Checking 24 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/cedet...
Checking 57 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/calendar...
Checking 87 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/calc...
Checking 77 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/obsolete...
Checking 2 files in c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/leim...
Checking for load-path shadows...done
Mark activated

Load-path shadows:
~/.emacs.d/bs hides c:/Users/Simon/Desktop/Programs/emacs-24.3/lisp/bs

Features:
(smtpmail cus-edit cus-start cus-load wid-edit help-mode shadow sort
mail-extr emacsbug message rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail
rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mail-utils misearch multi-isearch lisp-mnt
network-stream starttls tls smex dired org-wl org-w3m org-vm org-rmail
org-mhe org-mew org-irc org-jsinfo org-infojs org-html org-exp ob-exp
org-exp-blocks org-agenda org-info org-gnus org-docview org-bibtex
bibtex org-bbdb org warnings ob-tangle ob-ref ob-lob ob-table
org-footnote org-src ob-comint ob-keys org-pcomplete org-list org-faces
org-entities org-version ob-emacs-lisp ob org-compat org-macs ob-eval
org-loaddefs cal-menu calendar cal-loaddefs clojure-test-mode nrepl
compile ewoc eldoc arc-mode archive-mode etags pkg-info find-func epl
dash which-func paredit clojure-mode imenu inf-lisp tramp tramp-compat
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kmacro rainbow-delimiters paren ido desktop frink-mode comint ansi-color
ring markdown-mode thingatpt noutline outline easy-mmode easymenu
ample-theme-autoloads clojure-test-mode-autoloads
markdown-mode-autoloads nrepl-autoloads clojure-mode-autoloads
paredit-autoloads pkg-info-autoloads epl-autoloads finder-inf
dash-autoloads rainbow-delimiters-autoloads s-autoloads smex-autoloads
package time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel
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fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode
register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse
jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties
overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process w32 multi-tty
emacs)