The C signal handler ignores any exceptions that occur when dispatching the signal to the Java signal handler. As a result a signal such as SIGINT, that should initiate a shutdown of the VM, is not acted upon and the VM does not terminate.

Given the current Java signal dispatching code attempts to create and start a new thread to handle the signal, a low-memory condition (or equivalently lack of needed thread resources) will result in the failure of the signal being handled. In the case of SIGINT this gives the user the impression that the VM has hung.