TECHNIQUES FOR HANDLING QUEUED INTERRUPTS IN A DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM

A technique for handling queued interrupts includes accumulating respective backlog counts for respective event paths. The background counts track a number of events received but not delivered as interrupts to associated virtual processor (VP) threads. In response to a lowering of an operating priority (OP) of a VP thread (VPT), a scan backlog (SB) message is received that identifies the VPT and specifies a current operating priority for the VPT. In response to receiving the SB message, a linked list of event paths associated with the VPT is scanned to search for backlog events that have a higher priority than the current OP for the VPT. In response to a backlog event being located that has a higher priority than the current OP of the VPT, an interrupt to the VPT is initiated starting with a highest priority event path and the backlog count for the VPT is decremented.