The process was killed (SIGKILL).

See also bpo-30356.

http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/x86-64%20Sierra%203.x/builds/765/steps/test/logs/stdio

======================================================================
FAIL: test_many_processes (test.test_multiprocessing_spawn.WithProcessesTestProcess)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/buildbot/buildarea/3.x.billenstein-sierra/build/Lib/test/_test_multiprocessing.py", line 505, in test_many_processes
    self.assertEqual(p.exitcode, -signal.SIGTERM)
AssertionError: -9 != -15

I failed to reproduce the bug on Linux.

test_many_processes() test was added by Antoine Pitrou in bpo-30589. This test was mentionned in bpo-30703.

test_many_processes() is made in two steps. The bug occurs at the second step which calls proc.terminate() on processes. Code of the test:

    @classmethod
    def _sleep_some(cls):
        time.sleep(100)

    @classmethod
    def _test_sleep(cls, delay):
        time.sleep(delay)

    def test_many_processes(self):
        if self.TYPE == 'threads':
            self.skipTest('test not appropriate for {}'.format(self.TYPE))

        sm = multiprocessing.get_start_method()
        N = 5 if sm == 'spawn' else 100

        # Try to overwhelm the forkserver loop with events
        procs = [self.Process(target=self._test_sleep, args=(0.01,))
                 for i in range(N)]
        for p in procs:
            p.start()
        for p in procs:
            join_process(p)
        for p in procs:
            self.assertEqual(p.exitcode, 0)

        procs = [self.Process(target=self._sleep_some)
                 for i in range(N)]
        for p in procs:
            p.start()
        time.sleep(0.001)  # let the children start...
        for p in procs:
            p.terminate()
        for p in procs:
            join_process(p)
        if os.name != 'nt':
            for p in procs:
                self.assertEqual(p.exitcode, -signal.SIGTERM) # <--- HERE

I'm not sure about the "time.sleep(0.001)  # let the children start...". It looks like a weak synchronization. Maybe if the system is heavily loaded, the signal is sent before Python registered signal handlers? 1 ms seems short to start Python. On my Linux laptop, it's closer to 15 ms.

> It looks like a weak synchronization.

It is.  I don't remember exactly why I had to add this, I can't reproduce any issue without it anymore...

> the signal is sent before Python registered signal handlers?

Python signal handlers are not relevant here, we're sending SIGTERM which kills the process.

It seems other people have similar issues:
https://github.com/libuv/libuv/issues/1226

Perhaps we need to relax the test on OSX :-/

Antoine: "It seems other people have similar issues: https://github.com/libuv/libuv/issues/1226 Perhaps we need to relax the test on OSX :-/"

Oh thanks for the confirmation. I proposed a patch to accept -SIGKILL on macOS: PR 3857.

New changeset e6cfdefa0c2f5bda177e49b228c2c7528f7c239c by Victor Stinner in branch 'master':
bpo-31510: Fix multiprocessing test_many_processes() on macOS (#3857)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/e6cfdefa0c2f5bda177e49b228c2c7528f7c239c