[Bugfix] fix CUDA illegal memory access when sleep mode is triggered during request processing

[cynton503]

This PR fixes a bug where the scheduler continues to process requests after sleep mode has freed GPU memory, causing CUDA error: an illegal memory access was encountered and engine crashes.

This fixes #28714

Below is the test content. More test cases will be added later (such as triggering sleep when the model is processing multiple requests, triggering sleep when the scheduler is using batch_queue, etc.) along with related code fixes.

Test Plan

# Started vLLM server with sleep mode enabled VLLM_LOGGING_LEVEL=DEBUG VLLM_SERVER_DEV_MODE=1 python3 -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server \ --host 0.0.0.0 \ --port 7001 \ --model /model/Qwen3-4B \ --swap-space 20 \ --no-enable-prefix-caching \ --enable-chunked-prefill \ --max-num-batched-tokens 2048 \ --served-model-name qwen3-4b \ --enable_sleep_mode \ --dtype bfloat16 # Sent a long output request python test_req.py # Triggered sleep mode during the decode phase curl -X POST http://localhost:7001/sleep -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"level": "1"}'

Test Result

After the fix, the model can successfully sleep and wake up:

[github-actions]

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[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request introduces a fix for a CUDA illegal memory access error that occurs when sleep mode is triggered during request processing. The fix uses shared memory to signal the sleep state to the scheduler. My review focuses on improving the robustness of the shared memory implementation by addressing a race condition, preventing resource leaks, and handling exceptions more safely.

[gemini-code-assist]

This implementation has a race condition when creating the shared memory, which can lead to an unhandled FileExistsError. It also doesn't guarantee that shm.close() is called if an error occurs. Furthermore, the shared memory block is never unlinked, which can cause resource leaks and lead to stale state if the server restarts.

A more robust implementation should handle the race condition atomically, ensure resource closure with a try...finally block, and the application should manage the shared memory lifecycle (e.g., in the lifespan context manager) to create it on startup and unlink it on shutdown.

Suggested change

	def set_sleep_signal(value: int = 1, shared_memory_name: str = 'sleep_signal') -> None:
	try:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name, create=False, size=4)
	except FileNotFoundError:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name, create=True, size=4)
	if shm is not None:
	shm.buf[0:4] = value.to_bytes(4, 'little')
	shm.close()
	def set_sleep_signal(value: int = 1, shared_memory_name: str = 'sleep_signal') -> None:
	shm = None
	try:
	try:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name, create=True, size=4)
	except FileExistsError:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name, create=False, size=4)
	shm.buf[0:4] = value.to_bytes(4, 'little')
	finally:
	if shm is not None:
	shm.close()

[gemini-code-assist]

Using a bare except: is dangerous as it can hide unexpected errors, such as issues with buffer access or data conversion. It's better to catch only the specific exception you expect, in this case FileNotFoundError. Additionally, using a try...finally block ensures that shm.close() is called even if an error occurs while reading from the shared memory, preventing resource leaks.

Suggested change

	try:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name)
	sleep_signal = int.from_bytes(shm.buf[0:4], 'little')
	shm.close()
	except:
	pass
	shm = None
	try:
	shm = shared_memory.SharedMemory(name=shared_memory_name)
	sleep_signal = int.from_bytes(shm.buf[0:4], 'little')
	except FileNotFoundError:
	pass
	finally:
	if shm is not None:
	shm.close()

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

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[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Shared sleep flag persists across process restarts

The new set_sleep_signal creates a named shared memory block but never unlinks or resets it. If the server crashes or terminates after /sleep sets the flag to 1, the OS keeps /sleep_signal around with that value. Any new vLLM instance started on the same host will open the existing block and read 1, causing check_stop to immediately mark all requests as FINISHED_STOPPED even though the engine has not actually gone to sleep. This makes a fresh server unusable until someone issues /wake_up or manually deletes the shared memory segment. The shared flag should be cleaned up or defaulted to 0 during startup.

Useful? React with 👍 / 👎.

[heheda12345]

CC @22quinn