Jmeter Script Execution hangs - The JVM should have exited but did not

Question

We are running a jmeter performance tests script. It executes and produces results, but after that it just hangs (wait infinitely) showing The JVM should have exited but did not.

Full execution logs -

jmeter -n -t myScript01.jmx -l myScript01-results.jtl
Creating summariser <summary>
Created the tree successfully using myScript.jmx
Starting standalone test @ Sun Jan 03 05:07:06 UTC 2021 (1609650426432)
Waiting for possible Shutdown/StopTestNow/HeapDump/ThreadDump message on port 4447

summary =      0 in 00:00:00 = ******/s Avg:     0 Min: 9223372036854775807 Max: -9223372036854775808 Err:     0 (0.00%)
Tidying up ...    @ Sun Jan 03 05:19:01 UTC 2021 (1609651141694)
... end of run
The JVM should have exited but did not.
The following non-daemon threads are still running (DestroyJavaVM is OK):
Thread[AWT-EventQueue-0,6,main], stackTrace:sun.misc.Unsafe#park
java.util.concurrent.locks.LockSupport#park at line:175
java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject#await at line:2039
java.awt.EventQueue#getNextEvent at line:554
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#pumpOneEventForFilters at line:187
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#pumpEventsForFilter at line:116
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#pumpEventsForHierarchy at line:105
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#pumpEvents at line:101
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#pumpEvents at line:93
java.awt.EventDispatchThread#run at line:82
Thread[DestroyJavaVM,5,main], stackTrace:
Thread[AWT-Shutdown,5,system], stackTrace:java.lang.Object#wait
sun.awt.AWTAutoShutdown#run at line:314
java.lang.Thread#run at line:748

OS -

$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server"
VERSION="7.8 (Maipo)"
ID="rhel"
ID_LIKE="fedora"
VARIANT="Server"
VARIANT_ID="server"
VERSION_ID="7.8"
PRETTY_NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.8 (Maipo)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.8:GA:server"
HOME_URL="https://www.redhat.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"

REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7"
REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=7.8
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7.8"

java version -

$ java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_272"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_272-b10)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.272-b10, mixed mode)

jmeter version - 5.3

$ jmeter -v
    _    ____   _    ____ _   _ _____       _ __  __ _____ _____ _____ ____
   / \  |  _ \ / \  / ___| | | | ____|     | |  \/  | ____|_   _| ____|  _ \
  / _ \ | |_) / _ \| |   | |_| |  _|    _  | | |\/| |  _|   | | |  _| | |_) |
 / ___ \|  __/ ___ \ |___|  _  | |___  | |_| | |  | | |___  | | | |___|  _ <
/_/   \_\_| /_/   \_\____|_| |_|_____|  \___/|_|  |_|_____| |_| |_____|_| \_\ 5.3

Copyright (c) 1999-2020 The Apache Software Foundation

Any guidance is appreciated!

Answer 1

It looks like a side-effect of the JMeter Bug 64479 so the options are in:

1. Upgrade to JMeter 5.4 where the bug is fixed
2. Remove HTTP(S) Test Script Recorder from your Test Plan (this is something you should be doing in any case, it will decrease script processing time and it doesn't add any value once you're done with the recording)
3. Set jmeterengine.force.system.exit property to true