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androidlinuxubuntuprocessadb

Remove persistent zombie process from the command line

I run adb regularly and sometimes it stops working.

$ ps aux

user1  4175  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Zl   Feb27   0:03 [adb] <defunct>

This zombie process stops adb working and I can't get adb working again without restarting the computer.

I have tried sending 

kill 4175
kill -9 4175 
kill-17 4175

but nothing 'reaps' the zombie process.

How can I get adb working again without restarting the computer?

Also, I'm using:

Linux user1 2.6.32-38-generic #83-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 4 11:12:07 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Solution

  • The only kill command that reaps the zombie process is the one that kills its parent, since it will then reparent to init which will then proceed to reap it.

    Not really possible when it's a kernel thread though...