Repository: pytorch
Issue: SummaryWriter background thread holds the GIL for too long
Labels: oncall: distributed,module: tensorboard

### 🐛 Describe the bug

When doing DDP training with multiple processes and using SummaryWriter to log training information, the training speed drops significantly on some machines due to the extra thread created by the SummaryWriter interfering with the main thread in each process.

I don't have a small reproducer yet, but I encounter this behavior on multi-GPU systems.

### Versions

Collecting environment information...
PyTorch version: 1.13.0a0+08820cb
Is debug build: False
CUDA used to build PyTorch: 11.7
ROCM used to build PyTorch: N/A

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS (x86_64)
GCC version: (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04.1) 9.4.0
Clang version: Could not collect
CMake version: version 3.23.2
Libc version: glibc-2.31

Python version: 3.8.13 | packaged by conda-forge | (default, Mar 25 2022, 06:04:10)  [GCC 10.3.0] (64-bit runtime)
Python platform: Linux-5.4.0-146-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.10
Is CUDA available: True
CUDA runtime version: 11.7.99
CUDA_MODULE_LOADING set to:
GPU models and configuration:
GPU 0: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 1: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 2: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 3: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 4: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 5: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 6: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB
GPU 7: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB

Nvidia driver version: 525.105.17
cuDNN version: Probably one of the following:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_adv_infer.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_adv_train.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_cnn_infer.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_cnn_train.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_ops_infer.so.8.4.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcudnn_ops_train.so.8.4.1
HIP runtime version: N/A
MIOpen runtime version: N/A
Is XNNPACK available: True

CPU:
Architecture:                    x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):                  32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:                      Little Endian
Address sizes:                   43 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s):                          256
On-line CPU(s) list:             0-255
Thread(s) per core:              2
Core(s) per socket:              64
Socket(s):                       2
NUMA node(s):                    8
Vendor ID:                       AuthenticAMD
CPU family:                      23
Model:                           49
Model name:                      AMD EPYC 7742 64-Core Processor
Stepping:                        0
Frequency boost:                 enabled
CPU MHz:                         3317.628
CPU max MHz:                     2250.0000
CPU min MHz:                     1500.0000
BogoMIPS:                        4491.45
Virtualization:                  AMD-V
L1d cache:                       4 MiB
L1i cache:                       4 MiB
L2 cache:                        64 MiB
L3 cache:                        512 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s):               0-15,128-143
NUMA node1 CPU(s):               16-31,144-159
NUMA node2 CPU(s):               32-47,160-175
NUMA node3 CPU(s):               48-63,176-191
NUMA node4 CPU(s):               64-79,192-207
NUMA node5 CPU(s):               80-95,208-223
NUMA node6 CPU(s):               96-111,224-239
NUMA node7 CPU(s):               112-127,240-255
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:     Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf:              Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:               Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown:          Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data:   Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed:          Vulnerable
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1:        Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2:        Vulnerable, IBPB: disabled, STIBP: disabled, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds:             Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:   Not affected
Flags:                           fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate sme ssbd mba sev ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf xsaveerptr wbnoinvd arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif umip rdpid overflow_recov succor smca

Versions of relevant libraries:
[pip3] numpy==1.22.4
[pip3] pytorch-lightning==1.7.4
[pip3] pytorch-quantization==2.1.2
[pip3] torch==1.13.0a0+08820cb
[pip3] torch-tensorrt==1.2.0a0
[pip3] torchmetrics==0.10.2
[pip3] torchtext==0.13.0a0
[pip3] torchvision==0.14.0a0
[conda] mkl                       2020.4             h726a3e6_304    conda-forge
[conda] mkl-include               2020.4             h726a3e6_304    conda-forge
[conda] numpy                     1.22.4           py38h99721a1_0    conda-forge
[conda] pytorch-lightning         1.7.4                    pypi_0    pypi
[conda] pytorch-quantization      2.1.2                    pypi_0    pypi
[conda] torch                     1.13.0a0+08820cb          pypi_0    pypi
[conda] torch-tensorrt            1.2.0a0                  pypi_0    pypi
[conda] torchmetrics              0.10.2                   pypi_0    pypi
[conda] torchtext                 0.13.0a0                 pypi_0    pypi
[conda] torchvision               0.14.0a0                 pypi_0    pypi

cc @mrshenli @pritamdamania87 @zhaojuanmao @satgera @rohan-varma @gqchen @aazzolini @osalpekar @jiayisuse @H-Huang @kwen2501 @awgu