In the context of signal handlers, we may allocate RA memory. That is not ideal but may happen. One example is error reporting - even if we are careful, some code down the stack may use RA. Another example is code running in the context of AsyncGetCallTrace. I'm sure there may be more examples.

The problem is that the signal may (rarely) leave the current thread's RA in an inconsistent state, especially if it got interrupted in the middle of a chunk turnover. Subsequent allocations from it inside the signal handler then would malfunction.

A simple solution would be double buffering. Let each thread have a second resource area, to be used only in signal handling. At the entrance of the hotspot signal handler (which everyone goes through, even in chain scenarios like with AsyncGetCallTrace) we would switch over to the secondary resource area, and switch back when leaving the hotspot signal handler.

See also: https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-runtime-dev/2022-February/054126.html