Cygwin: Minor updates to load average calculations

Commentary wording now refers to tasks (i.e., threads) rather than
processes.  This makes it somewhat easier to justify adding two kinds of
counters together.  After researching what "load average" has meant over
time, we have what seems like a reasonable implementation, modulo
Windows differences to Linux.  The best resource I found is:
https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-08-08/linux-load-averages.html

At end of load_init(), obtain and discard the first measure of the
counters to deal with the first call always returning error, no data.
Follow this with a specific short delay so the next measure actually has
data to report.

At least one older version of Windows, i.e. Win10 Pro 21H1, has a different
name/location for the '% Processor Time' counter and is missing the
'Processor Queue Length' counter entirely.  Code is changed to support
both possible locations of the former and treat the missing latter as always
reporting 0.0.

A release note is added for 3.5.6.

Reported-by: Mark Liam Brown <brownmarkliam@gmail.com>
Addresses: https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2024-August/256361.html
Signed-off-by: Mark Geisert <mark@maxrnd.com>
Fixes: 4dc982ddf60b (Cygwin: loadavg: improve debugging of load_init)
(cherry picked from commit 0135b94949d2c9ba0b0f839fae8ff49a5bfe8589)

winsup/cygwin/loadavg.cc

@@ -15,17 +15,23 @@
 
   A global load average estimate is maintained in shared memory.  Access to that
   is guarded by a mutex.  This estimate is only updated at most every 5 seconds.
+  The updates are done by any/all callers of the getloadavg() syscall.
 
-  We attempt to count running and runnable processes, but unlike linux we don't
+  We attempt to count running and runnable tasks (i.e., threads), but unlike
-  count processes in uninterruptible sleep (blocked on I/O).
+  Linux we don't count tasks in uninterruptible sleep (blocked on I/O).  There
+  doesn't seem to be a kernel counter for the latter on Windows.
 
-  The number of running processes is estimated as (NumberOfProcessors) * (%
+  In the following text and code, "PDH" refers to Performance Data Helper, a
-  Processor Time).  The number of runnable processes is estimated as
+  Windows component that arranges access to kernel counters.
-  ProcessorQueueLength.
+
+  The number of running tasks is estimated as
+    (the NumberOfProcessors counter) * (the % Processor Time counter).
+  The number of runnable tasks is taken to be the ProcessorQueueLength counter.
 
   Note that PDH will only return data for '% Processor Time' afer the second
   call to PdhCollectQueryData(), as it's computed over an interval, so the first
-  attempt to estimate load will fail and 0.0 will be returned.
+  attempt to estimate load will fail and 0.0 will be returned.  (This nuisance
+  is now worked-around near the end of load_init() below.)
 
   We also assume that '% Processor Time' averaged over the interval since the
   last time getloadavg() was called is a good approximation of the instantaneous
@@ -68,8 +74,19 @@ static bool load_init (void)
     if (status != STATUS_SUCCESS)
       {
 	debug_printf ("PdhAddEnglishCounterW(time), status %y", status);
-	return false;
+
+	/* Windows 10 Pro 21H1, and maybe others, use an alternative name */
+        status = PdhAddEnglishCounterW (query,
+                        L"\\Processor Information(_Total)\\% Processor Time",
+                        0, &counter1);
+        if (status != STATUS_SUCCESS)
+          {
+            debug_printf ("PdhAddEnglishCounterW(alt time), status %y", status);
+            return false;
+          }
       }
+
+    /* Windows 10 Pro 21H1, and maybe others, are missing this counter */
     status = PdhAddEnglishCounterW (query,
 				    L"\\System\\Processor Queue Length",
 				    0, &counter2);
@@ -77,7 +94,7 @@ static bool load_init (void)
     if (status != STATUS_SUCCESS)
       {
 	debug_printf ("PdhAddEnglishCounterW(queue length), status %y", status);
-	return false;
+	; /* Ignore missing counter, just use zero in later calculations */
       }
 
     mutex = CreateMutex(&sec_all_nih, FALSE, "cyg.loadavg.mutex");
@@ -87,6 +104,12 @@ static bool load_init (void)
     }
 
     initialized = true;
+
+    /* Do the first data collection (which always fails) here, rather than in
+       get_load(). We wait at least one tick afterward so the collection done
+       in get_load() is guaranteed to have data to work with. */
+    (void) PdhCollectQueryData (query); /* ignore errors */
+    Sleep (15/*ms*/); /* wait for at least one kernel tick to have occurred */
   }
 
   return initialized;
@@ -101,8 +124,8 @@ static bool get_load (double *load)
   if (ret != ERROR_SUCCESS)
     return false;
 
-  /* Estimate the number of running processes as (NumberOfProcessors) * (%
+  /* Estimate number of running tasks as
-     Processor Time) */
+     (NumberOfProcessors) * (% Processor Time) */
   PDH_FMT_COUNTERVALUE fmtvalue1;
   ret = PdhGetFormattedCounterValue (counter1, PDH_FMT_DOUBLE, NULL, &fmtvalue1);
   if (ret != ERROR_SUCCESS)
@@ -110,11 +133,10 @@ static bool get_load (double *load)
 
   double running = fmtvalue1.doubleValue * wincap.cpu_count () / 100;
 
-  /* Estimate the number of runnable processes using ProcessorQueueLength */
+  /* Estimate the number of runnable tasks as ProcessorQueueLength */
-  PDH_FMT_COUNTERVALUE fmtvalue2;
+  PDH_FMT_COUNTERVALUE fmtvalue2 = { 0 };
   ret = PdhGetFormattedCounterValue (counter2, PDH_FMT_LONG, NULL, &fmtvalue2);
-  if (ret != ERROR_SUCCESS)
+  /* Ignore any error accessing this counter, just treat as if zero was read */
-    return false;
 
   LONG rql = fmtvalue2.longValue;
 

winsup/cygwin/release/3.5.6

@@ -16,3 +16,6 @@ Fixes:
   Addresses: https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2024-December/256971.html
   Addresses: https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2025-January/257058.html
   Addresses: https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2024-December/256987.html
+
+- Minor updates to load average calculations.
+  Addresses: https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2024-August/256361.html